Causation
by BEN-Beyond the Elusive Nomads
Summary: Clara's idea of normalcy changes unexpectedly when an experiment gone wrong projects her into a fictional world – one she knows all too well. But how will she survive five years until Shepard arrives? And what is Cerberus planning in the interim? "Self-Insert" AU, leads up to Shakarian romance in ME2. T for violence, language, and sexuality. Rating may go up.
1. Prologue

**PROLOGUE**

25 year old Clara Johnson was a shining pupil when she attended school. If any of her teachers were asked, they have would all say she was going to go far in life. She had no family, hadn't had one since she was 10, and no next of kin. As such, she was a perfect candidate for the job.

Working in the government came with many strings and many regulations, most of which made having a life outside of work near impossible. Clara was fine with that: She was introverted, though that was not to say she was antisocial, and thrived in the closed environments provided for her work. What her work was, she couldn't say. Classified, really. She couldn't even tell you where she worked, and could barely tell you the town she lived in.

It was a standard sunny day, the air light and cool around her. She smiled. It was just nice enough to remind Clara of all the reasons she left the South behind. She ran her fingers through her hair, pulling golden brown strands into a clasp as she stepped up to a large white building. It didn't stand out from the area, covered in graffiti and littered with advertisements, and no one noticed the small woman scanning a blank key card and pushing through the double doors. The entrance looked very much like a hotel: comfortable chairs occupied either side of the walkway, each grouping surrounding a small coffee table, and a large desk was pressed against the back wall. No one occupied it – no one human, anyway.

"Good evening, Legion," she greeted with a smile as she turned and headed down an oft-overlooked hallway. The lamp decorating the desk turned on its own, facing the woman and blinking in a friendly manner that she knew was simply him scanning her for illegals.

"Miss Johnson," the VI said in its stilted, computerized voice. "Welcome back. It has been 10 hours since your last visit."

Clara kept walking, but his voice kept up with her, filtering down to her through the fluorescent lighting that lined the ceiling. As he spoke, the lights brightened. She knew he was simply doing his job and escorting her, but she did enjoy the company.

The small computer had been one of her greatest achievements – though small was perhaps an understatement. She hadn't made him herself to any degree, and she had barely had a hand in his design. All she was offered was the chance to name him, and well, what better way to name something than after her favorite character?

(She also had a dog named Loki and a stuffed penguin named Lucifer, but those remained at her house and as far away from her work as possible).

"Your presence has been requested by Doctor Talia," Legion reported as she approached the end of the hall. "She is currently in her lab."

"Thank you, Legion. I will be there momentarily," she said, offering one last useless smile at the lights before pushing through into the main body of the facility. Legion's light flickered and disappeared, no doubt returning the majority of his capabilities on the lobby, and Clara hurried down a steep set of stairs. After a few moments she came to a door guarded by a man with heavy set eyes and a deep frown permanently pressed into his face.

"Hello, Miss Johnson," the man grumbled as she scanned the card and waited for her pin to be accepted. "You're here early."

"Well, work never waits," she said with a smile. He nodded as the door slid open. "Goodbye, Reggie. I'll see you again in a few hours, no doubt."

"Keep safe," Reggie cautioned her, dark brown eyes pressing into hers. "Everyone is worked up for some reason."

Clara blinked and a sliver of excitement ran through her – was it possible that they had finally succeeded? "Thank you. I'll be on my best behavior." She winked and he chuckled before nodding her through.

The next trip was significantly shorter despite the daunting length of the hallway. As Reggie had reported, the halls were flooded with personnel running back and forth from lab to lab, jabbering on an on about something she no doubt had little clearance for. She ignored the hustle and bustle and instead pushed onward through a large white door. The other side was surprisingly devoid of people save for one lone figure.

"Doctor Talia," she greeted. The tall, frail-looking woman hummed and waved the younger woman over.

"Look at this, Clara," she said, her thin, bony fingers flying across the keyboard as her eyes focused on the large armature before her. Clara watched curiously, stepping up to the large desk and waiting.

"Is that-?"

"Yes, it is," Talia said happily, a large smile stretching her chapped lips. "The transportation beam is in full effect. With this we should be able to send things between armatures at the blink of an eye – this is going to revolutionize the modern world! We could send supplies to troops in an instant, no more worrying about expiration dates. This is the future, Clara!"

"Where is the other armature located?" Clara asked curiously, leaning against the desk and bracing her head in her hands. Talia ignored her blatant abuse of protocol and continued talking quickly.

"The other side of the facility," Talia informed her promptly, pointing to a monitor that displayed a sister lab located in a completely different state. "We can observe it from here."

"Have you tested it?" Clara pushed anxiously. Something was eating at her, crawling up her arms and making the hairs stand on end. She brushed it off as nothing more than excitement.

Talia nodded. "See that apple?" she nodded at an apple a few feet in front of the young engineer, "We're going to send it to Facility A25 in a moment. Want to watch?"

Clara smiled widely, nearly jumping up and down from excitement. "Do I want to? Of course I want to!"

Talia laughed and pulled her dark hair into a bun, "Well, get ready."

Clara was practically vibrating in excitement, her fingers drumming against the counter as she leaned forward to watch whatever was going to happen. "Best seat in the house," she said, grinning over at her coworker.

"Activating the armature in 5," Talia said firmly, eyes focused intently on the logarithms in front of her. Clara's face hurt from smiling so much.

"4."

She was going to have to get something to eat after this – she had skipped breakfast and she was starting to feel the burn. She swallowed down any complaints, keeping her eyes focused intently on the armature.

"3."

Clara's smile faltered slightly as a strange tingling sensation crossed over her arms, sliding through her veins and settling deep in her stomach. She almost felt like she was going to be sick.

"Talia-"

"2."

"Talia, I don't-"

"1!"

There was a deep rumbling sound from the armature as it lit up, the bright white light nearly blinding Clara as it shot out towards the apple.

"Oh my god, _Clara!_"

She raised her arms, attempting to protect herself as the beam bypassed the apple completely and headed straight towards her. Talia's scream rang in her ears like an echo from far away, and then everything went dark.


	2. Act 1, Chapter 1

**ACT I:**

**Chapter One**

Silence.

A gasp tore through Clara's throat, her heart hammering in her chest and her lungs burning painfully. Her eyes took a moment to focus, darting everywhere. The ringing in her ears subsided and she realized she wasn't at work, not anymore. She wasn't even in the sister facility.

The ringing in her ears had been replaced by a dull roar, the sounds of people milling around a stark difference to the silence of the lab. Everywhere was bright, the floors and walls white and shining while people casually wandered about. Her eyes widened when she saw a blue woman walk by, turning to watch as she disappeared past a receptionists desk and into a stairwell. She turned around quickly, eyes burning and stomach churning as she realized why this place looked so familiar.

This was the Citadel. Specifically, the Presidium – she remembered playing Mass Effect and running from place to place as she tried to appease the Consort, find Nassana Dantius, help Bhatia get his wife back, to find Garrus and Wrex and Tali and oh god _she was in a video game_.

She held her purse close to her chest as she plopped down on a nearby bench, letting shock settle in. There was no other answer. It was impossible, completely unlikely, but undoubtedly true. She forced herself to move, forced herself to relax and act like she belonged.

She hadn't had to pretend like this in years, not since she was strutting about the orphanage acting like tough shit less she wanted to be treated like shit.

Normally, had she been in a strange city back on Earth – back in 2012 – she would have pulled out her phone and looked preoccupied. She nearly did, until she realized to everyone here that tech was over a hundred years old. Instead she settled for shuffling through her purse, acting like she belonged among the asari and the turians and the salarians that hovered nearby.

She had no idea where she was – she only knew she was in the Presidium. She didn't know who to trust here, not really, and she didn't even know the date (though, by her estimation, it had to be close to 2183 – if she was here, in this world, why would she be here at any other time?) Shock hadn't set in yet – her instincts didn't allow it to. She knew the moment she got somewhere safe her strength would evaporate and she would cry and yell and panic and theorize and wind up miserable. For now, she had to work on _not getting caught_.

Survival first. Survival required money. She mentally catalogued her current possessions – her iPhone, her car keys, her wallet (ID, credit card, debit card, checkbook and 50 dollars cash), stray pens, loose change, an old copy of Neil Gaimen's "Good Omens", her iPod, a game boy? When did she put that in there? And various bits of paper.

The iPhone would be useless unless she found a collector or a museum, technology didn't age like most antiques, the older it was the cheaper it came. Her purse was Coach, red patent leather, as was her wallet. She could get those for a high price if she went to the right place, most likely. She remembered watching shows like Storage Hunters, where they went through peoples discarded belongings to look for treasures. They would find Vuitton bags from the 1920's and wind up selling for thousands of dollars. The game boy was an old Colour, and she now remembered she had gotten it for Gerald and was going to give it to him as a birthday present. Books were good, if it was a first edition, and even then she may find a collector excited just to have any remnant of the 21st century.

As for the money, she could find a bank and exchange it for the galactic standard or save it until she found a collector willing to pay out.

And that was when she forced herself to look around again. How the hell was she going to survive? She may have plans, but she had little information except for what the games told her-

Wait.

Her eyes lit up and she actually smiled – that was it! Information!

She stood quickly, ignoring the curious looks sent her way, and walked with her head held high. Thankfully, she remembered this bit of the game – her console was unplugged just as she made it to Barla Von's office, and she'd had to find her way all over again. She didn't dare use rapid transport, not when she knew so little about it, and instead crossed to the other side of the Presidium.

She could panic later. Right now, she had to survive, and survival meant getting to the information broker. She couldn't pay him – not yet - but she could offer him information. It was risky. It was putting her own ass on the line, but if she didn't, well. She wouldn't have an ass left to bet.

At first she thought she was lost, certain she took a wrong turn, but then she spotted the wide expanse of the Financial district, recognized the hanar that sold goods to her in the game. Her eyes drifted to her right and she spotted a salarian leaning against the wall by a door, its button glowing a welcoming green.

There. That was his office. She took a deep breath to calm herself down before crossing the walkway, hesitating as the door opened automatically to her.

Across the sterile white room, situated behind a large desk, was a volus. He looked up as she entered, the sound of his breather clicking as he took in her appearance. She forced herself not to fidget as she approached the desk.

He said something, and her stomach sank when she realized she didn't understand it – of course. She didn't have a translator. But that didn't mean he didn't understand her.

"I'm afraid my translator was damaged," she said, offering a smile, "Do you happen to have a spare?"

The volus looked intently at her for a moment before pulling something from his desk and tossing it to her. She looked it over curiously and realized it slid into her ear like a hearing aid. She quickly popped it into place and pressed the small button on the side. She looked at the volus curiously, hoping it worked.

"How may I help you?" Barla Von asked, his words filtering into her head in the very familiar English, his breather clicking, "I…don't believe I've seen you on the Citadel before, Earth-clan."

Well that would be because she just arrived there. Clara took a deep breath, "I know you're an information broker," she said, "I need information."

The volus looked at her for a long moment before nodding at a chair, "Take a seat, Earth-clan. Perhaps we can be of some asset to one another."

She sat, keeping her purse tight to her chest as she faced the alien. He looked at her for a long moment, the lights of his eyes flickering as he came to some sort of conclusion about her.

"You should know that information does not come cheaply," he said. Clara forced herself not to fidget, to channel that inner strength that helped her survive for 8 years, and met his gaze evenly.

"I'm not here for the traditional information many of your other…clients may be looking for," she said, "Perhaps I can tell you what I need, and you can tell me whether you can help? I don't have money – not yet – but I'm a woman of my word, and if any of this information costs you I will repay you, that I swear." She pursed her lips as she inhaled through her nose, calming herself down, "Or, I can offer information."

"I'm listening," Barla Von responded, interest tinting his tone. His breather clicked, and Clara nodded.

"I own nothing but the clothes on my back and what is in my purse," she admitted, "I think I have some things I can sell, but I can't afford to give them away at anything less than top dollar. I was hoping you would know some collectors on the Citadel who would be willing to look at what I have."

Balra relaxed, nodded, "This information I will give you freely, Earth-clan. Though I must wonder," His breather clicked, "why you came to me."

"I can get to that in a moment," Clara responded, running her fingers over the strap of her purse, "Can I show you what I have?"

He nodded, motioned to his desk, and she very carefully unloaded her belongings in a nice line in front of him. He looked on with interest, eyes scanning over each new item until she had showed him everything she had. He looked at her then.

"You have some interesting fare, Earth-clan," he observed, his breather clicking, "I can tell you who will give you the most credits for these items, certainly. I can also tell you what would be best fit given to a museum."

He leaned forward and rearranged what she had quickly, grouping the electronics together in one pile, the money in another, the purse and wallet on its own, and the book he kept in his hands.

"Paper books are hard to find in this century," he said, running his stubby fingers over the binding, "Especially in a condition such as this. I have a friend with an extensive collection, and I do not believe he has this particular work. He would be very interested in buying it from you, and he is not afraid to offer you the best price. He collects not for monetary value, but for sentimental value. A strange man, certainly, but a good one."

He set the book aside and turned his eyes to the electronics, "These are worth nothing to almost everyone – but a museum. You could donate them, of course, but considering the condition I believe you would be able to get a hefty sum for the lot. I'm not familiar with most of these items, but there is a section of the museum dedicated to Earth – they will pay you decently for what you have."

"And then we have the money," his breather clicked, and she realized this was something that caught his personal attention, "I would have advised you, at first glance, to take it to the bank and exchange it for credits. Closer inspection reveals, though, that these paper bills and coins are old. Very old. Collectable, even. I, myself, am a collector of coins and paper bills from around the galaxy. If you would be interested, I can make you an offer for these pieces."

He looked at her, "Save the purses. They mean something to you, I can tell by the way you hold them. If it comes to it I can tell you who will buy them, but you should have more than enough money for what you already showed me."

Clara relaxed instantly, nodding eagerly as she responded, "Yes, thank you. Could you tell me about the money? How much you would be willing to pay?"

"Of course, Earth-clan," he agreed amicably, placing her items back into her purse for her before he spread the dollars and coins out on his desk, "This bills are all from the early 21st century – the 5, in particular, is one of the early colored bills from earth year 2007. It is easily one of the most cost worthy of your collection, though the 2 bill is also of interest. For the bills alone, I would be willing to offer you 10,000 credits."

Clara exhaled sharply – that was a lot. More than a lot. More than she had hoped. Not enough to get by forever, but enough for her to get by for a month or two. If Barla Von noticed her relief, he said nothing.

"The coins bear even more interest. For those I will offer you the same – 10,000 credits. Is this acceptable, Earth-clan?"

Clara nodded quickly, "Yes, yes, more than acceptable. Thank you."

The volus chuckled slightly, "I should be thanking you," his breather clicked, "I have been looking for these pieces for some time."

Clara gladly let him gather up the money, treating them like precious treasures as he placed them into a baggy and carefully tucked it away inside his desk. After a moment, he pulled a credit chip from a slot not unlike a USB drive and passed it to her. She accepted it gratefully, placing it in her wallet. She frowned at her debit card – it had held a decent amount of money.

"Does American Express still exist?" she asked, holding up the card curiously. He looked at it curiously.

"I don't think that ever has existed, Earth-clan," he said, looking at her curiously. She sighed. There went her savings.

"So far, considering what you have offered me, you don't owe me anything," Barla Von said, fixing her with an intense look, "However, I get the feeling there is more you want."

She shuffled in her seat for an instant before forcing herself to calm and meet his gaze head-on, "I don't exist here," she said honestly, "I need to create an identity."

His breather clicked, "Well, that is going to be difficult. But, not impossible. Tell me, Earth-clan, have you heard of Fist? He is another information broker, but unlike myself he dabbles in the darker side of brokering," he shook his head, "Normally, I would not direct someone to him – he is bad news, Earth-clan. However, he will get the job done. He will ask for payment of course – and it wont be cheap."

Clara felt her heart drop, "How much will he ask?"

Barla Von shook his head, "I am unsure. It depends on how…generous he is feeling."

Clara swallowed; if that wasn't ominous, she didn't know what was.

...

After obtaining a room in a cheap hotel for the night, she realized what year it was. The human news reporter, one she didn't recognize from the game, gave the year as 2178. Five years before Shepard visits Eden Prime.

If she thought she had needed to survive before, now it was even more apparent. She had five years until things happened according to her knowledge, five years to prepare for the arrival of the Reapers. She had no real training, self defense or otherwise, and now she had five years to learn.

It didn't feel like enough time.

What was she supposed to do? What did God or whoever-the-hell was up there want her to do? Why was she here?

This wasn't an accident, she knew that much – she'd seen the angle of the armature, there was no way that beam should have hit her, and even if her mental math was off (and it rarely was) there was no way the armature could have done all this. It was a simple transportation beam – all it did was move something from one place to another, not unlike the beams in Star Trek but not nearly as effective and definitely NOT to be used on people.

So, she was meant to be here. Clara didn't really believe in a higher power, had never been excessively religious (though she wore her grandmothers rosary around her neck even years after her passing), but what else could it be? There were no such things as freak accidents on this scale, not when the science and the logic completely refuted the outcome. If Clara believed in anything, she believed in science, and it just didn't do this. Science had rules and laws and guidelines and it so rarely strayed from them. Now was no exception, especially considering Talia had tested the beam moments before her own arrival in the lab.

But why? Why was she here? What did they want her to do?

Clara had no skills to help her survive – she had never held a gun, never been in a fight, had no combat experience save a few scuffles with other kids her age, and she hadn't had to defend herself in years. All she had was her brain, and the knowledge of the Mass Effect universe.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and thought deeply. This universe had to follow rules, just like any other, and now that she was here she had to follow those rules. She'd changed the future already – should she dare change it more? She wouldn't be here if she wasn't meant to do something. She knew that much. But how much did they want her to do?

What were the consequences – because there were always consequences.

She pursed her lips and laid back on her bed, throwing an arm over her eyes with a sigh. She knew she should have watched more Doctor Who, that would have helped now. What would the Doctor do?

Well. He would go back in time because he would have a TARDIS and that was a useless train of thought thank you very much.

She sighed. She was screwed. She was so screwed. She was pretty sure she had reached a new level of screwed, actually.

She rolled onto her stomach anxiously, burying her face into her pillow and holding her breath. How much should she change? Everything? How much should she tell Shepard, when the time came?

Clara had a completely unique opportunity – she had an absurd amount of weight on her shoulders, she quite literally held the fate of the world in her hands. Well. Maybe not literally – she doubted her pillow was the fate of the world.

Unless it was.

"God, I'm going insane!" she yelled into her pillow, the sound muffling and keeping anyone unwanted from overhearing. She rolled back onto her back and stared intently at the ceiling.

She couldn't do nothing. She couldn't stand by.

...

Clara put off visiting Fist for as long as possible, instead using the information she jotted onto her phone (and later onto her omni-tool) to track down the collectors Barla Von directed her to. It took a week before she sold all her antiques but the purse, her wallet, and the book.

By the end of the week, she had roughly 200,000 credits – it should have been more than enough to pay off Fist.

She bought a new wardrobe, unwilling as she was to endure the odd looks sent her way, and quickly melded with the crowds of people. Choras Den would require a different approach, however.

So, dressed in a slinky black dress with cutaways on the waist, she walked into Choras Den with her head held high, hair clipped back to show off the expanse of her neck, and headed straight back to Fist. She was stopped by a turian guard who looked her over as he demanded, "Where do you think you're going?"

Clara cocked her hip, noting the way his eyes hesitated on her waist, and said, "I'm here to see Fist."

His eyes met hers, narrowing suspiciously, "He know you're comin'?" he asked.

"No," she said honestly, "But I have information."

The turian watched for a long moment, weighing the situation in his mind, before lifting his hand to the piece in his ear, "Fist, got a girl out here to see you, says she has information." He listened to the response, glanced her over again, "For a human."

She shifted her weight to her other foot and crossed her arms, waiting patiently. After a moments more discussion the turian lowered his hand and stepped aside, "He's in the back room."

"Thank you," she smiled at him before using her faint memory of the bars layout to navigate to the back room. A guard ushered her in with a hand at her back and pulled out a chair for her – more than she had anticipated.

"So, my guard says you have information," Fist said, leaning back in his chair. Clara crossed her ankles and folded her hands in her lap, the picture of class.

When she was in high school she had been in theatre – she had gotten the lead role in several plays, and had always received high praise from her fellow students. She knew how to arrange herself and what motions to make when it came to convincing another person what she said was the truth.

"Yes, that's true," she agreed, keeping her tone light, "But I'm not going to tell it to you out of the kindness of my heart."

Fist quirked an eyebrow and drummed his fingers together, "What do you want in return?"

"A completely new identity," she responded, ignoring the shock that flashed over his features, "Everything from my birth to now, and I need it to be good. Can you do it?"

He hummed and sat up, picking up a data pad to flick through its contents, "I have some adept hackers in my contacts. I could set up a meeting."

"Please do so," she responded blithely, resting her chin in her hand, "As quickly as possible."

"Tomorrow, here?" he asked, "Just after opening."

"Perfect. Thank you," She smiled.

Fist nodded and tossed the pad aside, "Now we have to discuss my manner of payment. Aetius said you have information. I'd like to hear it, see if it's worthwhile. It's just business, you know. Otherwise I'm certain we can find some manner of payment."

God, she hoped he meant money.

"It's information regarding Cerberus," she responded, "I don't have any physical evidence, no paperwork, but I have the facts. Take it or leave it." She noted the way he stiffened, the slight narrowing of his eyes.

"Go on."

Clara took her time, shifting her weight and scratching her arm before saying, "A few years ago, Cerberus was performing experiments on human biotics, attempting to create the ultimate human biotic. These experiments centered around children, specifically."

Even Fist seemed unsettled by that information, "While that's interesting, I'm going to need some specifics-"

"The facility is in ruins now, located on Pragia," she said firmly, tilting her head, "I'm certain that will be sufficient?"

Fist nodded, "More than enough. My best hacker will be here tomorrow. Figure out what you want him to make, he'll have a whole new you created by the end of the week."

Clara smiled as she stood, "Thank you. You have done me a great favor."

"If we find out this information is wrong," Fist said, voice surprisingly threatening considering her main memory of him centered around him cowering from an angry Krogan, "We'll find you. You don't want that."

She turned her back to him and headed out the way she came, passing by the same guard as before. This time he stopped her with a hand to her shoulder. She turned and faced him, face perfectly calm while her insides were rushing about and panicking and trying to figure out where she'd gone wrong.

"I haven't seen you around the Citadel before," he observed, leaning against the wall casually as he dropped his hand, "What's your name?"

She blinked in surprise and shifted her weight, "Clara," she offered with a brief smile.

The turian shuffled, a faint blue tint colouring his neck and she wondered – was that how turians blushed? "I was wondering if maybe you wanted to grab a drink or something, after I get off work."

She blinked and despite her greatest efforts, she couldn't keep the blood from rising to her cheeks and staining her face. She opened her mouth to respond, floundered for a moment before saying honestly, "I don't really think I'm in the right place to go out at the moment."

His mandibles flickered, "Ah, well then. Sorry for bothering you."

Clara frowned and began to walk away before she stopped and turned, facing him again. She offered a flirty smile and said, "Ask me again tomorrow. I may say yes."

Aetius smiled, and Clara walked away before he had a chance to respond.

...

A/N: Hey, so, this is going to be my first multi-chapter Mass Effect fanfiction. Just a heads up: this story takes a little while to get going. The real "plot" doesn't start until chapter 5, but despite that the first few chapters really are important to Clara's development as a character and her motivations. This is predominantly a character-based story, and Shepard wont show up much in this, not until the end or possibly a cameo somewhere in the middle.

I've put a lot of thought into the pacing, so it's a realistic shift from a young, nerdy scientist to a young woman who can hold her own in a fire fight - if anything I write doesn't make sense and seems unrealistic, please let me know: I appreciate any and all constructive criticism.

Also: Nihlus will show up! He's a main player in this story, and I see him as a really deep character? So don't let how he acts at first turn you off. I have every intention to explore his character as well, just make sure to keep in mind that this is ALL from Clara's POV, so her bias does shine through.

Anyway. Thank you everyone who followed this story and decided to give me a chance, it means the world to me. Hopefully, this is something you can enjoy reading as much as I enjoy writing (:

Lots of love;

B.E. Nomads


	3. Act 1, Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Clara looked over her datapad slowly, carefully reading over its contents. She was now officially Clara Johnson, born June 18, 2153. She was raised on Earth until a few weeks ago, when she moved to the Citadel. She had no living family, no next of kin. She refused to lie about her education, knowing how that could easily turn and bite her in the ass, but she knew her actual major was essentially useless in a decade with tech that made the transporter that got her here look like child's play.

Having an identity did wonders with creating a life – she opened up a bank account and she got a job at a cute little café on the Presidium. It was a flashback to her freshmen year at college, working as a barista to help pay the rent. She was good at her job, though – she smiled and bantered and got orders out quickly. Her boss told her no one had complained about her, and she took that as a sign to keep doing what she was. They pay was decent, enough for her to make rent, and she got a discount on food so eating was cheap.

Time flew by so quickly that before she knew it, she'd been living on the Citadel for nearly two months. She hadn't even begun thinking about training – she barely had time to sleep, how could she fit rigorous training into her schedule? Where would she even go? There were never any life lessons on 'who to talk to when you need to learn how to be a soldier without actually enlisting'.

So, she told herself that would simply have to wait until later. She didn't know how much later would be, but, one thing at a time. Right now, she had to focus on surviving.

"You going to take me up on that offer yet?" Aetius asked, leaning against the counter of the Café with a smile. Clara rolled her eyes and passed him his drink.

"I told you, Tito, I'm not really in a good place for dating," she said before turning back to the griddle and flipping the sandwich before one side got a bit too crispy. "I let you buy me that drink."

Aetius sighed dramatically, "That's only because I hounded you for two weeks straight."

Clara shrugged, "Well, yeah. Also, free drink."

He laughed and straightened, shaking his head. "You're quirky, for a human. I like it. I've gotta go, we're opening in about thirty minutes. You gonna drop by tonight?"

Clara hesitated, not meeting his gaze as she fixed up the next customers plate, "I'm not sure," she said finally, stepping up to the counter and handing it off with a wide smile. She glanced at Aetius, "You just want me to keep you company, don't you?"

He shrugged, unrepentant expression on his face. "You make guard duty interesting. Fist doesn't trust you, you know. Won't tell me anything. According to him I should stop chatting you up. Care to explain why?"

"I thought you said you had to head to work," she retorted, before turning and pouring ingredients into a mixer. "Your boss isn't as nice as mine."

Aetius shook his head, "I'll figure you out one day, Clara. I'll see you later."

"Later, Tito!" she shot a smile over her shoulder. He nodded and turned, disappearing into the crowds quickly despite his impressive stature. She sighed and turned her attention back to the mixer.

Aetius was a good guy - turian, whatever. Despite their banter and his blatant attempts at flirting, he never pushed her for anything. He kept her company during the later hours of her shift, and she kept him company during his. As far as friends go she could have done way worse. And maybe she flirted with him, maybe she entertained the idea of dating someone like him, but she kept reminding herself that this wasn't her world. Aetius was a good man, but if he knew her - the real her, the 2012 her - he would turn tail and call the nearest asylum on her.

He was a good guy, and she could herself falling for someone like him. But this wasn't her world. It was safer if they kept it friendly.

Despite her initial hesitance, she found herself dressed in that damnable black dress as she entered Chora's Den. She didn't linger at the bar long, only taking enough time to get a drink before she headed over to Aetius' post.

"So, you dropped by anyway," he said, glancing down at her before returning his attention to his surroundings. "Is that new perfume?"

Clara raised an eyebrow, "You smelling me, Tito?"

He chuckled, "Can't help it – turians have a better sense of smell than humans. It's nice though, like it better than what you were wearing. Course, that smelled good too."

"Nice save," she said dryly, taking a sip. "You flirt with girls often?"

"Only the pretty ones," he winked.

She snorted, "Nice one. How are you still single? Smooth as you are you should have hoards of women throwing themselves at your feet."

"Well, the one I want keeps rejecting me," he sent her a sly look.

She mock-gapsed. "How dare she! She obviously doesn't know who you are," she winked. "I'll put in a good word for you, no worries. I'm sure I can wear down her walls with enough time."

Aetius shook his head and kept his attention on his surroundings. Despite his requests for her presence in the bar, he very rarely let his attention deviate from the job at hand. He was dedicated, though not to Fist exactly. Fist paid good money, money he sorely needed, and so he worked to make sure his job was secure. He had a sister, she knew, and she knew the girl was sickly. Every penny counted, and he refused any of her offers for help. Stubborn mule.

Clara was more than content to lean against the wall beside her friend and provide idle chatter to keep the boredom at bay. Tonight was different though – he was tense, as if he knew something was going to happen. Clara frowned.

"You alright, Aetius?" she asked.

"Got a spectre in here," he murmured. "There, on the left. Red plates, white colony markings."

Her eyes scanned over the bar casually, stopping when the turian matching the description slid into view. Her stomach dropped out and she forced her gaze away almost as quickly as it landed on the familiar face. She hadn't played Mass Effect in a long time, perhaps six months before her transportation into this universe, but she knew that face.

Nihlus Kryik. Spectre. Protégé of Saren Arterius. Dead man walking.

She sipped her drink and avoided looking in his direction. She didn't know why he was here, what Chora's Den held for him, but she knew she didn't want to cross his path. For now she was excelling at blending. She was unimportant, just another person on the Citadel trying to get by. She didn't need any drama, not when hell would come knocking on her door in five years time.

"You think he's going to cause problems?" she asked softly, glancing up at her friend. He shrugged.

"Hope not. Taking down a spectre is gonna suck."

Her stomach twisted and she wondered if that meant he would try to take the other turian down. Aetius was good: he had gone through military training just like every other turian, he'd done his time and gotten the hell out of dodge the moment his mandatory service was up. He kept his skills sharp, trained every night, but it wasn't going to be enough to take on a Spectre. It wasn't going to be enough to take on Nihlus.

Hours passed, and the spectre disappeared from view. Neither of them relaxed, but eventually Clara knew it was time to go. She yawned and popped her back, smiling sleepily up at her friend. "I've gotta head in."

"Aren't you off work tomorrow?" he asked curiously. She nodded.

"Yeah, but I'm tired. I've been up for hours. Us weak humans need our sleep."

She grinned. For once, Aetius didn't return it. "Stay safe out there tonight, Clara," he cautioned her. "If a spectre was hanging around, something's up. Don't want you getting caught in the middle of it."

Clara shook her head and leaned up to press her lips against his mandible, "Don't worry, Aetius, I can take care of myself. I'll see you tomorrow – coffee at the café around noon?"

"Is it a date?" he asked, waggling his brow plates. She laughed.

"You can pretend it is if it makes you happy," she agreed. He chuckled and patted her back, ushering her towards the door.

"Go sleep, Clara, you're actually starting to respond to my advances."

She laughed, probably a bit louder than a sober her might have, and gave him a pat on the shoulder. "I'll see you around, Tito. Stay safe out there tonight."

He let his fingers linger at her waist for a moment before he nodded and nudged her away towards the entrance. She stumbled a bit but waved him off before he could attempt to steady her. She could feel his eyes boring into her back as she left with her wits gathered about her. She channeled her inner strength, keeping her head high and an air of importance about her. As long as she did that, she could keep any unwanted attention away.

Though the day never ended in the wards, there were periods of time where the pathways were silent, their normal occupants either waking up for the day or heading to bed for the night. The empty period rarely lasted longer than half an hour, but it was enough time for her to get from Chroas Den to her house unencumbered. Usually.

"I have a question," a voice called out from behind her, causing her to misstep and nearly twist her ankle. She turned quickly, facing the voice with her hand balled in a fist at her side (_Thumb on the outside_, she told herself, _otherwise I'll break it_). Her eyes widened when she saw who was approaching her.

"What's a Cerberus operative doing on the Citadel?" Nihlus asked, quickly encroaching on her personal space. Clara felt her heart stutter in her chest.

"What are you talking about?" she asked, wishing that she had taken the time to by some of that god damned pepper spray. If it worked for Black Widow it could damn well work for her.

"Don't play coy," Nihlus demanded, stepping towards her as she stepped back. "Nothing happens on the Citadel that we don't notice. Not when you're a spectre."

"I'm not Cerberus," she said honestly, pushing her panic aside in an attempt to appear calm – it worked, to a degree. Her voice didn't even waver. She was pretty sure the wide-eyed expression gave her away regardless.

"Really," he said shortly, unconvinced. "So what you're trying to tell me is that you just stumbled upon a derelict Cerberus facility in the middle of _Pragia_."

_Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit_. He'd talked to Fist and that little rat bastard sold her out. That was why he had been in Choras Den, he had been watching _her_. _Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit_. How the hell was she supposed to fix this? How could she convince him she wasn't Cerberus? What could she say, she went on a vacation to Pragia and stumbled upon the ruins of an abandoned research facility? Nothing wouldn't make her look guilty.

"If I was Cerberus why the hell would I sell information about them?" she demanded, continuing her steady walk backwards. She knew this path well, walked it almost every night. She just hoped she was as familiar with it as she thought.

He matched her step for step, keeping the same distance between them, "Ex-Cerberus, then. Don't think I just took the information and left it at that. You're Clara Johnson, born June 18, 2153, arrived on the Citadel two months ago. Grew up on Earth. These papers are solid, but Fist was a loose end. You should have kept to Barla Von, at least he doesn't sell out his customers. I have to admit, I was surprised to see you so cozy with a turian. When I first saw you two together I thought you were planning on shooting him in the back. You're a good actor, though. I almost thought Fist lied to me."

"I am not Cerberus," she said slowly, cursing when her back slammed into a wall. She should have never had that last drink. "I never have been and I never will be. I'm not a xenophobe."

"Then where did you get the information?" he demanded, closing the space between them before she had a chance to bolt, "Cerberus has been on the move these past few months – just a small bit of information will give us the edge we need. If you're not a xenophobe, then you'll tell me what you know."

"I don't know anything else," she swore, and it was the truth. All she knew wouldn't happen until 5 years from now, and she had no idea if some of those plans were already in motion – she knew nothing of worth.

"Lying doesn't become you, Miss Johnson," Nihlus said, glaring down at her and for a horrible, terrifying moment Clara wondered if he was going to kill her.

"I'm not lying!" she snapped, her fear turning to anger because god, why couldn't he hear the truth? Why was he so driven to find out what she knew when she'd already shared all she could? "I stumbled upon the information, that's it. I've never worked with Cerberus and I never will!" At least, not for another 7 or so years. Theoretically speaking. If she got on the Normandy, you could bet your ass she was going to stay for the long haul.

He kept glaring, refusing to budge, and Clara wondered how long he planned on keeping her there. Finally he stepped back and she released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding in. "I don't believe you," he said. "I know you're hiding something."

"Then why are you letting me go?" she retorted, narrowing her eyes at him.

"I don't have enough evidence," he said with a shrug. "But I will. You're a threat to the Citadel, and I'm not going to let you wander around doing whatever you like. The moment you step out of line, I'll be on you."

There was a murmuring in the alleys, and Clara let her eyes dart away for just a moment. In that instant, he was gone, melding with the crowds of people as they slipped from their homes and out into the streets, just starting their day. Clara was left, paralyzed with fear, and for a while she wondered if her own home was even safe.

Her head fell back against the wall as she steadied her heart. After a long moment she forced herself back into the crowds. She tried to blend, tried to keep a steady pace, but before she realized it she was nearly jogging up the stairs into her home on Bachjret ward. Her fingers shook as she unlocked the door, and the moment it opened she slid in and slammed it shut.

She was silent for a long while, letting her breathing steady and her heart rate slow as she leaned against the wall. An instant later, she sank to her knees and cried.

…

Clara awoke hours later to a pounding on her door. At first she thought it was in her head, the remnants of a fading hangover, but after the pounding did nothing but get louder as she ignored it she realized it wasn't coming from in her own head. She sat up, her hair a disheveled mess, and listened closely.

"_Clara?"_

She stumbled to her feet and hurried across the room, quickly unlocking her door and letting it swing open. Aetius stood on the other side, fist raised to knock again. The moment he looked at her he relaxed, curses flying from his mouth in a language her translator refused to comprehend.

"Do you realize what time it is?" he asked as she stepped aside and let him in. She closed the door quickly, fear still burning in the back of her mind. He raised his hand, pressing it to her cheek in a way that made her heart stutter. She leaned into his palm for a moment before stepping towards him. In an instant his arms were around her and she was sobbing into his chest. He trilled anxiously, his mandibles flickering as he attempted to comfort her. His talons ran through her hair and pressed soothingly against her back.

"I – I – I…" she hiccupped, trying to force herself speak but unable to get past the first syllable. He shushed her, his chest vibrating as he continued to trill at her. A small, slightly hysterical side of her likened him to an anxious mother hen.

"Calm down, Clara. I'm not leaving you, alright, so just...take deep breaths," he murmured, pressing the side of his face to her head, nuzzling it gently, "Breathe, Clara."

She hiccupped a few more times, trying to reign in her emotions. To his credit, he didn't falter in the gentle motion of his hands against her back, and the soft trilling sound gave her something to focus on. Eventually the sobs subsided and she calmed down enough to pull her face away from his chest – she didn't dare pull away from his arms, though. Not when she finally felt a modicum of safety.

"Are you okay?" he asked, before cursing and shaking his head. "Listen to me, you're clearly not okay. What happened, Clara?"

Her lip trembled and he moved quickly, guiding her to her couch and gently forcing her into the cushions, "Look, I'll make you some of that drink you like – asari tea, right? I'll make you some tea, and you rest. Can you tell me when I come back?"

For a moment, despite the fact that she was still terrified and wanted anything but to be left alone, her heart warmed. She'd only mentioned her taste for asari tea once before, back before they were even close to friends, and he'd remembered it this whole time. She sniffled, and nodded. He pushed her hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear as he pressed his forehead to hers briefly. He was gone an instant later, the sounds of him bustling about in her small kitchenette keeping her from panicking any further.

He returned a few moments later with a steaming cup of tea. The cup looked positively ridiculous in his hands, and she couldn't keep in the laugh that slipped through her lips. He blinked, but relaxed slightly at the laugh, "Are you making fun of me?" he asked, mandibles flicking into a small, hesitant grin.

"You look ridiculous," she said, accepting the drink gratefully. "Your hands weren't made to hold such tiny cups."

He bristled, his mandibles flaring slightly, but he quickly relaxed again and sat beside her. She leaned towards him and he let her rest her head against his shoulder. He waited patiently running the backs of his fingers over her arm as she drank. Eventually, the tremors that rattled her frame dispersed, and she was able to speak clearly.

"I haven't been totally honest with you," she said hoarsely, looking up at him. He was watching her closely, his eyes soft and his mandibles relaxed. It was the most open she'd ever seen him.

"I didn't expect you to be," he said with a slight shrug. "The day I met you, you were coming to meet with Fist. That doesn't exactly reek trust. Next day you were talking with one of his men and I thought you were bad news. After that…I wasn't sure what to think of you."

She bit her lip, glanced away from him, "I'm not a bad person, Aetius. You know that. I was just in a bad place. Christ, I don't know a way to explain this that wont make me sound completely insane."

"It wont change my opinion of you," he vowed. "I swear."

She hesitated, working her lip between her teeth as she tried to figure out how the hell to explain everything, if she even wanted to explain everything. What else was there, though? She knew no one else, Aetius was her only friend, and he was looking at her with such honesty she wasn't certain she could lie ot him if she tried. Surely sharing the burden would help? Surely, of all people. Aetius would believe her? She opened her mouth, planning on taking it slow, but her heart overloaded her logic and everything just came pouring out. She didn't dare look at his face, terrified to see the rejection in it.

She told him about her home, nearly 200 years in the past, in an alternate dimension where she played a game called Mass Effect. She told him about what was to come, the return of the Reapers, Saren and Sovereign, Commander Shepard and the Normandy. She explained how a simple trip to the office turned into a one way trip to the Citadel, lightyears away from home. He said nothing, barely moved, barely showed he was listening.

"That's why I went to Fist," she finished, turning away. "I needed to become a person – I don't exist here. How could I survive without any sort of paper work? So I traded him, information for an identity. I told him about an old Cerberus research facility, barely mentioned in the game.

"Nihlus, the Spectre from last night," she stared into her cup, afraid to see his reaction. "He came up to me after I left the bar, demanded I tell him more information on Cerberus – information I don't have, nothing relevant anyway. And I was terrified, Aetius. I've never been more afraid in my life and I thought he was going to kill me, the way he was glaring at me…"

She stopped, glancing up at him, waiting for something – anything – to happen. Whether he pushed her away and claimed to hate her or called an asylum on her, anything was better than silence. He was looking straight ahead, mandibles tense against his face as he thought. For a horrible moment, she thought he was going to say nothing – to just get up and leave. Instead he looked at her, his eyes intense, and asked, "You swear you aren't lying to me, Clara?"

"I swear," she enthused, putting her whole soul into the words, because if Tito didn't believe her…then who would? "Aetius, why would I lie about something like that? This doesn't just happen. I need you to believe me, Tito. Please."

He relaxed, his mandibles fluttering as he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close. He buried his face into her hair, breathing her in, before murmuring, "I believe you."

"You do?" she asked, almost to scared to believe it. He nodded.

"I make a living watching liars and thieves," he said. "I know when someone's telling the truth. I also know you."

She relaxed instantly, smiling and pressing her face against his neck in a strange rendition of a hug. His hand dropped and rested on her waist. He purred – it was the only name close to the deep sound that she could give it – and nuzzled the top of her head, pressing her closer to him. "I don't know what I would do without you, Aetius," she admitted, "People have been nice, yeah, but you…you make things easier. I'm stuck in an alternate dimension, and you make me want to never go home."

He pressed his mouth to her forehead, and though kissing was generally not something turians were capable of, the notion made her heart warm, "Maybe this can be your home now."

Clara smiled softly, and even though she had just woken up her sleep had been anything but restful. The soothing motion of his hand sliding through her hair, talons tracing gently against the back of her neck, was more than enough to send her into a restful sleep.

When she woke, Aetius had laid her out on the couch and covered her with a quilt. She wondered if he had left her, but a moment later she head the sound of plates clinking in the kitchen. She watched as he stepped into the living room, a sandwich on one plate and a foreign dish on the other. It looked almost like mashed potatoes, but with the colour of corn. She sat up, stretching slightly, and smiled when he handed her the sandwich.

"Went out to get this," he said with a grin, "Just so you don't get your hopes up. I can't cook anything, the most I can handle are instant meals."

She laughed, feeling lighter than she had in weeks, "I appreciate your honesty," she said, "Truth is? I can't cook worth shit. You may have noticed my fridge is barren and my cabinets stocked with instant soup."

"I did," he said with an amused lilt to his tone "I took it as a warning. I clearly can't expect you to cook for me."

Clara shook her head and sat the plate on the coffee table, standing and stretching. When she felt thoroughly stretched-out she plopped back onto the couch beside the turian, who wasted no time in pressing his leg against hers. She smiled almost shyly, and nudged his foot with her own.

"I'm glad you're here," she said, glancing up at him. He ruffled her hair, smiling as she huffed.

"Wouldn't want to be anywhere else."

...

A/N: Hey y'all. So, I know, OC/OC's are really hard ships to read about sometimes, but I promise you there IS a purpose for their relationship. Like I said, Clara has to find herself, has to find motivation, and Aetius plays a huge role in this. Not only that, but he plays a role in preparing her for everything that's to come. Without Tito, it's fairly likely she would have never found a way to get onto the Normandy in 5 years bar enlisting and going through the Alliance.

So, please stick with me through this little lull in action - it's still just the exposition, after all!

Also, I lied last note: Chapter 4 is when the plot technically "starts", following a timeskip. I know, not everyone cares about Tito and Clara (even though they do have a warm spot in my heart) and just want to get to Nihlus. More than the brief cameo in this chapter, anyway. Nihlus will be here! I promise! But he isn't just going to pay attention to her for shits and giggles.

Anyway. I promise that things DO start moving soon. So please, bear with me. I try to keep every chapter around 4000 words, give or take a few hundred, that way the wait between chapters isn't so excruciating. Anyway. Thank you EVERYONE who reads through, even just a little. And to those who are still reading now, never worry about me dropping this due to lack of incentive or lack of response: Clara is my baby, and I WILL see this story through. It may take time, but if things go as they should then this should be finished in a few months.

IMPORTANT: The next chapter has some smut, though it is very very mild. I, personally, wouldn't consider it M. It's also the only instance of intimate interactions in the work. I would prefer to keep this at a T rating, but if you would like me to bump the rating up just let me know.

Lots of Love;

B.E. Nomads


	4. Act 1, Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

_Warning: This chapter contains potentially M-rated material_

Things changed between them after that. Though they never actually said anything about being a couple there was little room to think they were anything less. It was said in the way his fingers lingered on her waist, the way her heart sped up when he smiled, the way she found herself looking for reasons to touch him. He spent most of his free time with her, either watching her work or stretching out beside her on the couch, running his talons down her arm as they watched old vids.

And she was happy, so blissfully happy that she didn't know how she could have ever existed without feeling like this.

"How long has it been since you saw your parents?" she asked as she took a bite of ice cream, letting the cold melt over her tongue for a moment before swallowing it down. Aetius shrugged, pushing his dessert around on his plate.

"A few years at the least, they're busy looking after Aelia," he said. "She's been sick for ages, it's the only reason she didn't go to boot camp when she was 15. Some sort of bone disease that keeps her from fighting. On bad days, she has to use crutches."

"Can the doctors do anything?" she asked, frowning. "I mean, there has to be something they can do. Right?"

"Nothing they haven't already done," he said with another shrug, and despite his apparent indifference she knew it bothered him – she could see it in the way he fidgeted, the way his talons toyed with his napkin. "I send half my paycheck to her account, it's why I can't afford to live in a nicer ward. I know how to protect myself, though. I didn't last through boot camp on luck alone." He grinned.

That's when a thought hit her, burrowed its way into her brain and refused to leave until her mouth opened and the words poured out, asking: "Can you teach me?"

He quirked a browplate at her. "What, how to protect yourself? Clara, this isn't Omega."

She shook her head, "No, I know it isn't Omega – thank god," she could only imagine what would have happened if she had been transported there. "But if things are going to happen as I think they are…I need to help, Tito. You know me. I can't sit back and do nothing when I have the power to help."

"You're too nice," he commented seriously, before grinning and flicking a crumb at her. "But I know what you mean. So, what, you want me to teach you to fight?"

"You can, can't you?" she asked.

He scoffed, "Of course I can. I'm not going to go easy on you though just because I like you. If you're going to learn to fight, you're gonna have to put up with a lot of shit. You have to learn to walk before you can run."

"I can do it, Aetius," she said firmly, meeting his gaze head on. "I don't _want_ you to go easy on me. I can take it."

He leered, and when she caught on to his train of though she laughed and threw her napkin in his face, ignoring the scandalized looks the waiters gave them in favor of ducking as he retaliated with his fork.

They were promptly kicked out of the restaurant, but it had been a bit fancy for their tastes anyway.

Clara hadn't really prepared herself for what Aetius had in store for her, she hadn't understood the depths of what she was asking for. She was sleeping peacefully, dreaming about her dog (it was strange now, moving her leg in her sleep and not feeling the little space heater curled under the blankets) when there was a loud and insistent banging on her door.

She didn't bother dressing, hurrying to her door and pulling it open to give whoever it was disturbing her a piece of her mind – but Aetius pushed past into the room like he owned the place and began barking orders.

"You aren't serious," she asked monotonously, watching as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Deadly," he counted. "Now, it's 10 past 5. Every minute you waste is an extra lap through the presidium. Go go go!"

She obliged easily with that threat, her eyes widening before she hurried back up stairs and pulled on shorts and a tank. Aetius held up his end of the bargain, and that day she spent two hours jogging around the presidium with Aetius keeping up with her every step of the way without breaking a sweat – metaphorically speaking.

After that excellent torture method and a brief break for her to rehydrate, he worked on drills. He made her go through them again and again until her muscles burned and her head throbbed. It was only after she felt she may collapse that he stopped, dropping the act and wrapping his arms around her. The affectionate way he nuzzled her hair was enough prompting to sag into his arms, letting him support her weight. He trilled apologetically.

"You enjoyed this," she protested as he slid his palms over her back soothingly. "You're a sadist. You like seeing me suffer."

"I'm just doing what you asked," he said, and she groaned because she knew he was right. "Come on, you need to bathe. You have work in two hours."

She sobbed, and Aetius just continued to rub her back soothingly.

...

Clara had hoped beyond reason that he would leave her be the next day, let her recuperate, but he was unrepentant in his methods. Every morning for the next two months he was at her door, demanding she wake up and jog, and after that it was drills. If they finished by 8, she was lucky. Most days she finished by 10. On bad days, she barely had an hour to get ready for work.

It was pushing her – it was really pushing her. Her temper was short, and though she more than enjoyed the way he would hold her after, she was about ready to punch him. Punch him and actually land the hit, that is.

"Right, lets go through this again," he said as he kicked the mat back into place. Clara groaned, and quickly tied her hair up in a bun, pushing the irritating strands from her sweat soaked neck and getting into position.

Aetius had added sparring into the mix after the first two weeks – every weekend after Clara recuperated from her morning work outs they would relocate to his apartment where he would roll out a sparring mat and go at each other. The first date he beat her fifteen times in ten minutes and then scolded her for not properly implementing her training into her fighting. And then they began again.

"Tito, we've been over this a thousand times," she groaned, her abs and arms aching. "Can we take a break?"

"You just had a break," he pointed out.

"That was two hours ago!" she snapped. He shrugged.

"Hit me, just once, and we'll take a break." He said.

She stared at him for a long, incredulous moment. "You're joking," she said shortly. He shook his head and got into his stance.

"Not a bit," he countered, "Now come at me."

She took position begrudgingly, glaring at him the whole time, and took a deep breath. She lunged, aiming for his face. A quick move, and Aetius had her face down on the mat, his weight holding her down. She cursed, and he let her up with a brisk: "Try again."

So she pushed herself up and tried again. Over and over and over until finally, _finally_, she feinted to the left and hit for the right and her fist connected full strength with his cheek and he stumbled back.

She froze. Aetius looked at her, mandibles flickering into a wide grin.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"I've got tougher skin than that," he retorted confidently.

"Good."

And she threw herself at him, her legs wrapping around his waist and her arms sliding around his neck. She kissed him along his injured cheek, along the length of his mandible, until her lips slid over his and even though he was a turian and kissing wasn't their usual manner of affection he was pretty damn good at it. Her lips moved against his mouth, tender and slow while his tongue pressed against her lips, probing curiously until she opened to him and moaned.

Her fingers slid up his neck, pausing beneath his fringe to trace along the surprisingly soft skin lurking there, and he positively growled before twisting them around and slamming her against the wall.

"Aetius!" she gasped as his lips abandoned hers and he began to nip softly along her jaw. She managed a laugh, breathless and short, as her eyes flickered closed and her head fell back against the wall. "I thought we were training?"

"We were," he agreed, his hands gripping her hips like vices and pulling her against him. "Now we're taking a break."

She moaned as his hand slipped up her back, under her shirt, and his nails left thin red lines along her skin. They had never done this before, never gone further than affectionate nuzzles and brief kisses, not for lack of wanting but for lack of timing. Now it felt right to toss her shirt aside and bar herself to him, to let his tongue dance over her skin while her fingers sought to discover every single place that made him moan.

"Bed," she panted when his fingers began tugging at her pants. "In a bed."

He slipped his mouth over hers and she kissed him, pressing her tongue to his and dragging her fingers over his neck as he pulled away with a growl.

As he pulled away from the wall and crossed the room to the bed, she vaguely heard Garrus' words in the back of her mind: _We held a tiebreaker in her quarters. I had reach, she had flexibility. _Was sparring this exciting for turians all the time? How long had Aetius been keeping his urges under control when he sparred with her? The idea that this slow building need had been boiling under the surface for months now made her heart race.

He deposited her on the bed gently, pulling her pants off as he moved away from her body. She missed the contact instantly and the moment her legs were free she reached for her underwear, tearing it down her legs and tossing it aside. He growled, his dark eyes roving eagerly over her body, and in an instant his clothes were abandoned and he was in front of her, completely bare.

"Aetius," she said, nervousness finally working its way through the haze of lust. "I've never done this before."

He blinked. "What, never? Spirits, you're a virgin?"

She laughed, smacking his shoulder, "No you dumbass, I've never done this with a turian before."

He bristled in embarrassment, running his fingers up her thigh and quickly interrupting her laughter, "You should have clarified. I almost panicked, I was afraid I was going to break you."

"You still might," she said dryly. "My last boyfriend was eight years ago."

His eyes widened slightly. "It's been eight years for you?" he asked.

"Losing the mood here, Romeo," she said dryly. "We can talk about nuances later, right now you better find your way on top of me or I swear to God-"

He laughed and an instant later he was on top of her again, nibbling down her neck and across her chest as her fingers traced over his skin, searching out the subtle curves and lines that pieced him together, learning what strings she had to pluck to make him sing-

He growled as her hands pressed into his waist, and pulled back, "Don't do that unless you want this to end quickly."

She quirked an eyebrow and a devious smirk made its way across her lips, "Sensitive, then?" she asked, sitting up and sliding her fingertips just barely along the curve of his waist. He growled and in an instant her hands were pinned to the bed while his tongue traced a path along her neck, over her breasts, and down her stomach. Her breath hitched and he grinned.

"Turnabout is fair play," he quipped.

"This is a bit extreme for turnabout," she retorted.

He grinned wickedly and delved deeper. By the end of the night Clara was very much alright with his idea of turnabout.

"You look ridiculous right now," Aetius observed after, as he ran the backs of his fingers down her arm, looking down at her with a peaceful expression. Clara hummed and stretched, reaching her arms up and out as she arched her back.

"I'm relaxed," she explained, cracking open an eye to look at him. "You have turned me to goo. I have been liquefied. Congratulations." Aetius frowned and looked honestly concerned for a moment, forcing her to laugh, "It's a human thing, Aetius. Consider it a compliment."

He seemed to accept that explanation, ducking his head to nip along her shoulder. She hummed and tilted her head away, prompting him to turn his attention to her neck, "We need to practice some more," he said. Clara groaned, a sound that quickly turned into a whine.

"Tito, I can't move," she protested. "You can't seriously expect me to stand up and fight right now." He didn't budge, looking down at her seriously. She pouted and reached out, running her fingers over his chest. "Come on, Tito. I'm not sure I can even walk."

That seemed to make some improvement – he preened and wrapped his arm around her to pull her against him. "Fine. We can rest for now."

She felt something pressing against her thighs and raised an eyebrow, "It doesn't feel like rest is on your mind."

He shrugged unrepentantly and she smiled wickedly.

"Lay back," she ordered, pulling away from him slightly. He quirked a browplate but obliged, curious to see what she was going to do. She lowered herself, straddling his legs as she ran her fingers over his groin plates. He shivered.

"What are you planning on doing?" he asked.

"I vaguely recall you saying you liked my lips," she said with a smile, lowering herself slightly. "I'm simply…encouraging your admiration."

And as she slipped her lips around him he cursed, his fingers clenching in the sheets and his hips rolling up to meet her, she couldn't help but admit to herself that she didn't want to be anywhere else but here, with him.

...

Clara grunted, lashing out at Aetius with her leg. It connected with his thigh and he stumbled, but quickly regained his footing. As he did so her fingers sped forward, stopping an inch away from his neck, his own hand moving to intercept a moment too late. He grinned, his mandibles widening, and she exhaled as her hand dropped.

"You beat me," he said proudly. "You're getting better. That's the first time you've taken me out."

Turian's were stronger than humans by nature. Their plates were no where near strong enough to be called armor, but they were thick enough that it took effort to take them down flesh-to-flesh. Aetius had been more than willing to inform her of their weak spots, pointing them out to her and explaining the best ways to take him down. Eventually she learned – this was just the first time she'd succeeded.

(Of course, she was rather fond of his more intimate lessons on turian anatomy, but those weren't techniques she planned on using with anyone but him.)

"I couldn't have done it without you," she argued, stepping forward and wrapping her arms around his middle. He purred and pressed his lips against the top of her head briefly, before nuzzling her temple.

"You aren't a fighter, not naturally," he said. "I hope you never have to use this."

Clara hoped she didn't, either, but she knew she was wrong. She had less than five years before shit hit the proverbial fan, five years of training to look forward to. She had to be good enough, strong enough, fast enough. She had to make a difference, and Aetius knew that she wouldn't just let everything happen without stepping in.

He was right. She wasn't a fighter – she hated training, hated throwing punches and hurting people. When she was younger she wanted to be a nurse – at least, that was until she realized it involved blood and potentially seeing peoples insides, and that just did NOT set well with her. Now here she was about to walk into a war that would not only make her see peoples insides, but be the one forcing them onto the outside.

It was a thought that nearly made her sick.

Despite the dour mood that had quickly settled over her achievements, Aetius promised to take her wining and dining to celebrate. Five months of training had finally paid off, and even though it was a strain on both their pockets he reserved a table at the fanciest Levo-Dextro restaurant in the whole damn Citadel. She dipped into her savings, just this once, and purchased a beautiful purple dress (the exact shade of his colony markings) and black heels to match the simple costume jewelry that adorned her ears and wrists.

When they met up, Aetius looked like he wanted to rip the dress from her body and ravage her for all to see, so everyone knew she was his. It made her heart flutter and her lips curve into a sly smile.

"You're gorgeous," he murmured, pushing a stray hair from her face and letting his hand linger on her shoulder, "I changed my mind, we need to get back to my apartment so I can ravish you."

She laughed, short and full, and pressed her hand into his, "Come on. I, for one, plan on eating until my stomach bursts."

He frowned, "Please don't. That sounds unpleasant."

Dinner went exceedingly well, considering on normal occasions neither of them had the will nor the maturity level to last in such high class environments for long. Even now they giggled a little too loudly, joked a little too crassly, and played a little too roughly. They were paying good money, though, and despite the fact that they were less than perfect guests the waitress seemed more than happy to attend to them.

They left her a nice tip. She kept pouring the wine when most would have stopped.

After they left (promising never to speak of the cost to anyone) they made their way from the restaurant to the Presidium, leaning against the thin white rails that was the only thing keeping them from falling into its sparkling lake. Clara kicked off her shoes, her ankles and toes begging for reprieve, and leaned over the edge.

"Do you think there are any fish in there?" she asked. She had gotten the damn mission in Mass Effect 2, but she had never found the answer. Now, in her drunken haze, she wanted to know.

Aetius, slightly more sober than her, made sure to keep his hand firmly around her waist and halt any attempts for her to investigate further, "No. That's also the drinking water. They wouldn't risk putting fish in there."

She sighed, a completely petulant sound that made him laugh, and leaned into him. He supported her weight easily enough, running his fingers down her arms and watching as the skin prickled in his wake.

"You're beautiful," he said, surprisingly serious for a moment. "In this light, you glow."

She looked up at him, watched as the water projected ripples across the sharp angels of his face, and realized that despite his alien shape, despite the completely foreign texture of his skin against hers, he was beautiful, too. It was the little things that made it so – the small scar on his chin from an old fight, the way the light purple of his colony marks looked against his pale grey plates, the way his dark eyes looked almost blue from this angle. He was stunning.

"I want to be with you," she said suddenly, pressing against him. "Forever. Is that weird?"

Aetius shook his head, slid his fingers down her arm before looping his arm around her waist, "No. It's not."

She sighed and looked out over the lake, resting her head against him as her eyes grew heavy in her head, "I've never wanted to be with someone forever before. I never believed in it. But with you...with you, I could be forever. With you, I want forever."

It wasn't I love you. But it worked. Aetius just pulled her close and tugged a box from his pocket with his free hand, holding it to her as casually as he would extend a credit.

"I picked it up while you were getting ready," he said, eyes glued to her as she carefully grabbed the velvet box with shaky fingers. "It's the best I could afford. I wish it was more, but…it's what I have."

She opened the box and her eyes immediately caught the sight of a dark jewel, beautiful and shining in a way that made her heart stutter. It was simple, small, and attached to a thin silver chain. She smiled as she ran her thumb over the edge, marveling at the liquid feel of metal, and sighed blissfully.

"It's perfect," she said. "More than perfect. Thank you."

Aetius shrugged, the motion belied by the thick sound of his voice as he responded, "Nothing less than what you deserve."

When she kissed him, she felt like her heart would burst from her chest. He pulled back and wiped his fingers over her cheeks, brushing away tears she hadn't even noticed.

"Happy tears," she informed him with a small smile. "They're definitely happy tears."

"Humans are weird," he murmured with a grin, and close as he was she could feel the vibrations of his chest, watch the subtle twitches of his mandibles. She couldn't hear the noises he was making, his subharmonics reaching levels human hearing couldn't hope to comprehend, but his eyes said what his voice could not.

So she leaned up and kissed him again, trailing her lips along his plates to whisper in his ear.

When they went to bed that night, they celebrated each other the only way they knew how – with teeth and tongue and touch, pushing and pulling at each other until they fell over the edge and into bliss, over and over until neither of them could move to pull away.

...

A/N: So, for those of you who stuck through the relationship building, the next chapter is when shit goes down. Prepare yourselves. There may be tears. (As in, I cried writing it so there will probably be tears).

I'm not sayin' much more than that, just once again thanking everyone who's sticking through the plot building process with me. This isn't a giant romance work - that's why it isn't under the romance genre. It just starts that way.

I'm trying to make this story very REAL, I'm trying to make sure it feels like real people in real situations. Like the characters, specifically Clara and Nihlus, aren't perfect, that they aren't infallible, and that they can make mistakes. Because everyone fucks up. I just want to bring that level of realism to the story. I want you to hurt when Clara makes a mistake, I want you to love her and I want you to hate her because she just can't see what you can. I want her to grow, and I want you to see her grow.

That's enough from me for now, though.

Lots of Love;

B.E. Nomads

p.s: so, when I made Clara I didn't intend this at all, but if you want a real life comparison as to what she looks like I would suggest looking up Emma Caulfield (AKA Anya from Buffy). A picture of her came up on my dash and I realized 'well damn. That's Clara.' I have a specific picture in mind when I say that, of course, and if you are curious I'll link to it in my profile. Clara is (in case you were wondering) of Spanish descent so the comparison isn't perfect, but it's a nudge in the right direction. (Her grandmother is from Spain, hence the rosary I mentioned in earlier chapters.)

p.p.s: CHARACTER CAMEO NEXT CHAPTER.


	5. Act 1, Chapter 4 and 5

**Chapter Four**

_A/N: I've combined chapter four and chapter five, because in hindisght...chapter 4 is just too much by itself. I'm not totally happy with it, so, here have two chapters in one._

Training changed after she started coming up to par, when her hits began landing more often than not. Aetius couldn't teach her to use a gun larger than a pistol, but he could teach her how to use a knife. Now that Clara had hit her stride, learning became easier and it didn't take nearly as long for her to adapt to new weapons and situations.

Aetius had been training her for nearly a year, now. It had been a year since Nihlus had accused her of working with Cerberus, a year since she had seen Earth. Some days she missed it, the simplicity of her old life and the routines she had easily retreated into. Life on the Citadel was fast paced and hard, and with the sizeable chunk of her paycheck going into savings she barely had enough money to eat on most days.

She was considering getting a second job at the local museum as a tour guide – specifically, in the ward dedicated to Earth history from the 1900's to the 2000's. It paid well, and the hours didn't conflict with her job at the Café. It did mean that she would have to rearrange her schedule for training, though.

Aetius listened patiently as she explained her worries and offered nothing but support for whatever she decided to do. They were tiptoeing around something bigger, though, and neither of them seemed willing to take the first jump. Aetius was paid well as a bodyguard for Fist, but not well enough – not when half the money went to his family back on Palaven. Rent was getting harder and harder to pay for both of them.

Finally, Clara snapped. One night over dinner – leftovers from the Café, reheated to luke warm temperatures and served on disposable plates – she couldn't take it any more.

"Do you want to move in with me?" she asked, the words tumbling out before her brain could think of stopping them. He glanced at her, sandwich raised to his mouth. He lowered the meal to his plate and shrugged.

"Sure," he responded. "Your place is bigger than mine anyway."

She blinked at him, incredulous, "It was really that simple?" she asked. "No arguing, no debating, no worries?"

"I could think up an argument if you like," he offered. "I don't like your curtains, and your carpet feels weird against my feet."

Clara frowned, but the expression couldn't hold when all she wanted to do was smile. "You don't like my curtains?"

He shrugged, "I figured we could take my curtains to replace them. You know, melding of two houses kind of involves melding of the things in them. We can't really change the carpet, that costs too much, so I'll just invest in some slippers."

The image his words brought to her mind was too hysterical not to laugh, and he waited patiently with only the slightest pout as she got her giggles out. She calmed and with a smile, leaned up to kiss his mandible.

"We can start moving whenever you want," he said, bumping his leg against hers. "No rush."

Clara looked back down at her food and sighed as images of their potential future began running through her head, "We can get actual plates and nice silverware."

"I can burn those old curtains," he quipped, flinched away with a laugh as her elbow connected with his side.

It was a slow process, bringing his things into her house. Each day they cut into her training (which honestly was mostly done out of habit than real need) and began bringing his things over, bit by bit. His TV replaced hers, since it was nicer, and they began hanging his pictures of his family up almost immediately. He spent his nights with her, more often than not, and eventually all that was left were the formalities.

Tonight, Aetius was moving out. Officially. His things were in her place and her dresser was now their dresser, her bed now their bed, and all that was left was the technicalities.

Aetius walked her to the museum at noon for her interview and pressed his forehead to hers. He'd wished her luck and she'd responded with a kiss before sending him on his way. As he left he promised to pick her up from the Café and walk her home.

The interview went well, and they told her they would contact her at the end of the week. Clara left for work in a hopeful mood, crossing her fingers and praying that things would go her way. If her boss at the café noticed the change in her disposition, he didn't say anything – he just passed her her apron and kicked her right out into the battlefield.

Nine o'clock came and went, and Clara was starting to worry, her teeth biting into her lip anxiously as time seemed to slither by. She glanced at the clock, and her heart stumbled. She wasn't normally one to worry, but Aetius was missing – usually he arrived a good half hour early to entertain her during her late shifts. Tonight, he was missing. Her shift had ended five minutes ago.

Finally, she could take it no more – she could feel it deep in her bones. Something had happened. Aetius was notorious for being on time, his years in the military teaching him well, and his absence was a dark cloud over her mood. She only hoped that her feelings were wrong, that he was fine, that he had simply lost track of time.

It didn't stop her from navigating through the wards towards his apartment, moving swiftly through the crowds until she finally spotted his building. A group of men sped past her, ones shoulder connecting with hers as he hurried away.

"Hey, watch it!" she snapped, turning to glare at his back. Her gaze lingered on the yellow and black emblem on his outfit, and her heart plummeted in her chest.

Cerberus.

She didn't know it was Aetius, didn't know if that was who they cornered, but the completely irrational fear that it was him and that they had hurt him had worked its way into her head and she couldn't ignore it. She took off, running down the hall and to his door and her heart stopped and tears bloomed in her eyes when she realized his door was unlocked.

Aetius never left his door unlocked.

She stepped in, her heart hammering away like a hummingbird and her legs stiff and her eyes wet and suddenly she stopped. She didn't need to look for him – he was right there, in front of her, the first thing her eyes landed on.

"Oh, god, Aetius!"

She was at his side in an instant, her hands fluttering over his form as she tried to find something – anything – to stop the bleeding. He coughed, a horribly wet sound, and his hand brushed against her cheek. She cringed as she felt the heat of his palm, the trail of wetness left behind and she realized his hand was cut and his blood was everywhere-

"Hey, Clara," he coughed, his breath coming in short rattles. "Sorry I was late."

She sobbed, pressing her hand to his mandible and running her thumb over the obscured colony marks – she could barely see them under the blood.

"Oh, Tito," she whispered, her lip quivering. "What happened? Christ, I – I have to call C-Sec…"

He shook his head and nodded towards his omni-tool, "Did, sent out a distress call the moment I heard someone trying to hack my door. They're on their way. Not sure I'll last long enough for them to get here with a medic."

"Don't say that!" Clara snapped, and she was crying, silent tears dripping from her eyes despite how hard she tried to hold them back. "Don't you dare give up! You're going to get through this, you're going to be fine."

"No I'm not," he protested and a sob ripped through her, "They injected me with something. I feel like I'm gonna be sick."

"Just hold on for a little while, they can't be far off," she said. "We'll save you, Tito, I promise. C-Sec is gonna get here and you're going to be fine. Just hold on, okay? We'll get through this."

Aetius smiled, but this time when he coughed blue blood splattered from his lips and dotted his chin. Clara whimpered, but forced herself together. She remained diligently by his side, holding his hand and murmuring words of encouragement as he continued to fade.

"Clara, listen to me," he said, squeezing her hand tightly. "You have to keep fighting."

"Tito-"

"You have to keep fighting," he reiterated. "Promise me you wont give up. Promise."

Clara nodded her head, the tears coming freely now as she tried to speak, her voice coming out as a waver, "I promise, Tito. I promise, just please, rest. Please. I can't lose you."

He smiled, his mandibles flickering slightly and he closed his eyes with a short exhale, "I'm glad you're here, Clara. I was afraid. All these years I thought I was going to die alone. You here…makes it easier. I'm not as scared any more."

Her lip trembled as she tried to smile, for him, "You don't have to worry, Aetius. I'm not leaving you – never."

She waited by him patiently, running her fingers over his face and whispering promises to him over and over, until his eyes stayed close and chest stopped moving. A sob ripped through her throat, her shoulders shaking as she tried to hold herself together just a little longer, just long enough for the police to get here so she can tell them-

The door opened and she turned, saw the officers, and all attempts at reigning in her emotions vanished. The dam burst as she sobbed, and one of the officers stepped forward to pull her away. She collapsed into his arms, the idea of standing on her own too much, her own weight was crushing, and he supported her awkwardly.

"We're gonna need forensics," the turian supporting her called, his voice vaguely familiar but in her grief, could not be placed.

"Get her out of here," another voice demanded. "See what she knows."

"Now? She's distraught, don't you think we should let her calm down?" her support beam asked. Clara shook her head, gasping in breaths as she tried to explain, to say what she knew. The officer pushed her back slightly, resting his hands on her shoulders and leaning to eye level, "Hey, hey, calm down. You don't have to answer anything right now."

She looked at him, blue eyes surprisingly gentle, and she managed a word: "Cerberus…"

There was commotion from behind, from the cops, and Clara tried to turn but she hear their words and she froze, unable to head anything else as the officer exclaimed, "We've got a pulse!"

Everything moved then, people rushing about while the officer she had clung to stayed by her side, barking out orders and calling for medics. They arrived an instant later, stretcher ready as they pulled Aetius' on.

Suddenly there was hope, building in her chest – Tito was alive, he wasn't dead, he was alive and they could save him-

"Miss," the officer interrupted, pulling her back to the present. "I need you to tell me what happened."

"I saw – Tito was late, he was moving out today," she coughed as she inhaled wrong, choking on her own saliva, and pushed forward. "Was on my way, saw them leaving – the uniform, the symbol. It was Cerberus. I ran, thought I could h-help-"

A sob ripped through her, interrupting her explanation and the C-sec officer took the lull to look at one of his coworkers, "Call in Nihlus, he's going to want to hear this. I'm going to take her outside, she needs to get out of here."

"Yes sir."

The rest of the events were a blur of tears and awkward offerings of sorrow from the officer she had unwittingly clung to; they gave her a blanket to wrap around her shoulders, and it was with a bitter, choked laugh that she thought: _I'm in shock, look, I've got a blanket_!

Eventually she stopped crying and she was ushered down to the station. They put her in a room and she realized she was going to be interrogated – she was probably a suspect, until they could determine she wasn't just a hell of a good actress. She was in there for maybe ten minutes before an officer came in, and a quick look told her who they were. In any other instance, she may have smiled at her luck or laughed about coincidences.

"Miss Johnson," Garrus greeted. "I'm Officer Vakarian."

"You're the one I cried on," she said, her voice hoarse. She offered a weak smile that felt fake and forced and nearly made her cry all over again. "Sorry. I – I wasn't –"

He shook his head and sat across from her, "You don't have to apologize, Miss Johnson. I understand."

"Call me Clara, please," she protested, shaking her head. "I've never liked being called Miss Johnson. It reminds me of a teacher I hated. How is Tito? Aetius," she corrected awkwardly, "Is he alright? I haven't heard anything, they just ushered me here…"

Garrus frowned, his mandibles pressing to his cheeks, "We aren't sure. He was injected with an unknown poison, it's worked his way through his system and the medics are trying their best to stabilize him. We'll let you know as soon as we know more.

She nodded, swallowing down her fears, and Garrus requested: "Clara, I know this is still very fresh, but I need you to tell us what you remember. Just take us from the beginning."

Clara swallowed, her mouth achingly dry. She took a drink of the water offered to her, letting it whet her tongue before she even attempted to explain.

"Aetius began moving in to my place a few weeks ago, tonight he was going to get everything finalized and then we were going to go out for dinner," she explained. Her fingers dropped to her lap as she began to toy with the hem of her shirt, "He promised to stop by when I closed shop down at the café, but he wasn't there today. He's never late, so when he still wasn't there I went to his apartment. I just – I felt like I was going to be sick the whole way. I've known him for over year now and this was the first time he wasn't there."

She was starting to tear up again and she forced herself to hold them back, her breath jumping awkwardly as she pushed forward, "I was almost there when I saw three men running past – they bumped into me, and when I turned to say something I saw the emblem on their uniforms. One of them was covered in blood – red blood," she clarified quickly, "His. Tito obviously didn't let them get him without a fight."

Her lip trembled again and Garrus waited patiently until she spoke again, her voice louder as she tried to keep her emotions under key and failed. "I ran the rest of the way, and his door was unlocked so I went in and-" she took a shaky breath and tears slipped unbidden through her defenses, "He was laying on the floor. He said they'd injected him with something, like you said."

She wiped her tears away angrily, avoided looking at Garrus as she said, "I stayed with him until you showed up. He – I couldn't just – I couldn't let him be by himself. If I had known that he was – I could have done something, tried something, anything, and he would be stable and I-"

"You did all you could, Clara," Garrus informed her, but she knew how this worked. She had played the role before, long ago when she had just turned 18 and nearly burned down her first apartment. The words meant nothing, but she nodded anyway.

"Is there anything else I can do?" she asked, looking up desperately. Garrus hesitated before shaking his head.

"No, but someone else wants to talk to you before we let you out of custody," he said, sounding apologetic.

Clara sighed but nodded, running her hand over her face, "If it helps. I'll do whatever you need."

Garrus stood and left then, not bothering with any platitudes or 'I'm sorry's, which she appreciated. She was tired, she was emotional, she was in shock, and she just wanted to be home and in bed, curled around the pillow that probably still smelled like Aetius. She sniffled and wiped at her eyes again, bracing her arms on the table and taking in deep breaths as she waited. Barely a minute passed before the door opened again. She looked up to see her newest interrogator, and her heart dropped.

Nihlus stood there, arms crossed and expression bland. Of course he was here, he had a personal goal to hunt down Cerberus and this was a Cerberus attack. Of course Nihlus was involved.

"Great, it's you," she groaned, pressing her face into her hand. It made sense though, that it was him. Of course it was him. God just hated her that much.

"You know, I almost believed you that night," he said calmly, arms crossed over his chest. "When you said you weren't Cerberus. I watched you afterwards, for a few weeks. You play a long game, Clara – if that's your name. Of course, imagine my surprise when the next Cerberus sighting leads me right back to you. So, how did you do it?"

Clara was dumbstruck for a moment. Her hand dropped to her lap and she stared at him, her mouth gaping and her heart thrumming in her chest as anger slowly sat in. Anger wasn't close to describing how she felt, the complete fire that filled her veins and turned her vision red. "You bastard," she hissed, the insult slipping from her lips before her mind could even process it, "How dare you - I didn't attack Tito. Get out!"

Nihlus shook his head, "You aren't in charge here, Miss Johnson. Why did you try to kill him?"

"I didn't!" She protested, and as soon as the anger filled her it dispersed. After all she had been through, she couldn't keep it up - she was just so tired. She ran her fingers through her hair, inhaling shakily. "I didn't hurt him. I was at work from noon to nine, you can check my timesheet."

"That doesn't mean you didn't organize it," he said calmly. "You may not have personally attacked him, but you could have easily planned it."

"What do you want from me?" She asked. "A false confession? Information I don't have?"

She had to give him props for his tenacity - he didn't let up, throwing questions at her left and right and she answered truthfully, until she could barely raise her voice to respond. All she wanted was to go and see Tito.

Eventually he left, but as quickly as he disappeared Garrus had returned, hesitantly moving towards her. Clara shook her head, speachless. Garrus placed a hand on her shoulder, almost timidly, and an instant later she was leaning against him and crying anew.

One day, she would apologize for using him like a walking tissue. Today, it was all she had to keep from dying.

...

Finally, after what felt like ages, she was released from custody and she could go to the hospital. At first they wouldn't tell her his room or where to find him, but an officer who had been at the scene arrived just in time to let her though with a sympathetic glance. Chellick, she thought his name was. She couldn't remember.

She couldn't see him yet, not really. She was in his room, waiting for him to return from whatever the medics were doing to him. She tried to keep herself occupied, reading and watching the television set, but nothing could keep her mind from the fact that Aetius could be dying and she wasn't there by his side.

She hadn't even told him she loved him.

She whimpered, bent herself in two and buried her face in her hands, desperate for some kind of reprieve. It was while she was doubled over in pain that the medics returned, Aetius' body spread out on a strange stretcher that they used to lift him into his new bed. They took their dear sweet time checking everything over, and on one hand she appreciated it – it meant they were being careful. On the other she wanted them out, so she could wait for him to wake and-

"Ma'am?" a medic, more formally dressed than the others, stepped into the room with a glowing datapad.

"Yes?" she asked, sitting up and facing him. She tried her best to look brave, but the look one his face was far from inspiring.

"We managed to stabilize Mr. Quintus – had we gotten there any later and we might have lost him," he informed her, frowning deeper as she visibly relaxed. "However, I'm afraid that's the only good news we have."

Clara's heart dropped to her stomach. The medic continued, unawares.

"The poison he was injected with can't be found anywhere in the medical records," he said. "It's new, privately engineered to effect turians. I don't think it was complete, Mr. Quintus was just an unfortunate test subject."

Clara's fingers clenched and her stomached rebelled, bile rising in her throat. She forced it down, forced herself to remain calm and devote herself to listening. There had to be something she could do, anything, and the medic was the one who could tell her.

"Without the information regarding the creation of the poison, creating a cure will be…difficult," he said, choosing his words carefully. " The serum was made to deconstruct itself after taking root. We were lucky he got here before it could totally erase itself. But, I'm afraid Mr. Quintus isn't going to wake up any time soon."

Clara's heart stopped.

"H-he's in a coma?" she asked.

"Yes."

She choked, trying to think up a response but finding herself suddenly completely incapable of talking. She opened and closed her mouth, trying to retort, trying to let him know to leave, but she could only nod stupidly and try not to cry. All she had done was cry, ever since she found him, and even though he was alive she still felt like her world was ending.

The doctor seemed to get the message. He left with a sympathetic glance, and Clara doubled over again. Breathing was difficult, like her chest couldn't expand properly, like her lungs were stuck and couldn't take in enough air. She hadn't felt like this before, never in her entire life – not even when she lost her family.

She sobbed and forced herself to stand, approaching his bedside and pressing her hand against his. The vitals looked normal, nothing weird once you looked past the fact that he was in a fucking coma, and it just looked like he was sleeping.

Only Clara knew better. If Cerberus had had their way, Aetius would be dead. They had failed, though, and Aetius was alive.

She clung to that small sliver of hope – Aetius was alive.

Aetius was alive.

But for how long?

...

**Chapter Five**

After nearly sleeping in the hospital three nights in a row the nurses had forced her out, demanded she bathe and get a proper nights sleep. They were right – the sleep had been sorely needed. That didn't mean she would admit it to them. It was during her forced absence at Aetius' side that the Quintus family arrived on the Citadel. Clara only discovered this when she woke, eyes dry and face sore, and found them waiting on her doorstep. She stumbled over herself, offering apologies and useless niceties that felt hollow. She hadn't stopped crying for three days straight, had gone through endless boxes of tissues at the hospitals expense, and had called in personal time off at work – days her boss promised wouldn't be taken from her vacation time.

His mother was tall and regal, with dark plates that clashed with the pale purple of her colony marks and the light grey of her eyes. Her husband was the opposite in colouring, pale skin and dark eyes, and looked so dreadfully similar to Aetius that her heart ached and she had to refrain from crying anew.

The smallest of the three was a young turian, and Clara didn't need to ask to know she was Aelia. She looked sickly, gaunt for a turian, and her light eyes were tired. She offered Clara a smile, though – tired and empty, but a gesture that Clara treasured none the less.

"You're Clara," his sister said kindly, offering a hand, which she accepted awkwardly. "My brother spoke of you often."

She smiled, holding back a whimper. She would be damned if she broke down in front of his family – she would be strong, like she hadn't been for days, "Tito – Aetius, that is…he talks about you a lot. He was planning to visit you in a few months, when he got time off."

That made Aelia smile sadly, and Clara stepped aside quickly. "Come in, I'm sorry I wasn't expecting you to stop by. I would have cleaned, or at least tidied."

Aetius' mother stepped in quickly, placing a warm hand on her shoulder and meeting her gaze firmly, "You do not have to do anything for us. My son treasured you, and spoke of you as if you were a goddess. I simply wished to meet the woman who brought life back into his eyes."

Clara relaxed, the unspoken fear that they hated her drifting away at his mothers words. She had worried, considering the past between turians and humans, that they would hate her, that they would disapprove of her relationship with their son and that they came here only to take his things and leave her to mourn alone.

"I'm sorry, I don't know your names," she apologized. "We never – Aetius just called you his parents."

His mother offered a smile, kind despite the deep pain in her eyes, "I am Iovita," she said, "And this is my husband, Gaius."

She met the mans gaze for the first time, and she realized his silence wasn't a form of disapproval – his eyes were sad, his mandibles tense against his face, and she knew he was afraid that if he spoke he would break down. It was a feeling she knew well.

"I have some dextro tea, if you'd like some," she offered. "I – it just came in the mail today, it was – is Tito's favorite."

"I'll go make it," Aelia announced firmly, "You stay in here and rest. You've lost just as much as we have. It is unfair to make you work as if you haven't."

Clara was touched, her cheeks flushing as she held back thankful tears and just nodded, motioning towards the kitchen. Despite her frail appearance, Aelia moved gracefully and her presence demanded respect. Clara could see why her brother loved her so dearly.

"I'm sorry," she said, apologizing again though she didn't know what for. "I don't – I'm sorry. I'm just sorry."

She was crying again and they were kind enough not to mention it. Turians didn't cry, they couldn't cry, and Clara knew this, but she was certain that didn't mean they didn't grieve. Iovita had almost lost a son – could very well still, and Clara couldn't imagine the pain she had endured. For the first time, she thought she was the one who got it easy.

"Aetius spoke very highly of you," Iovita said as they sat in the living room, looking around at the small but comfortable life Clara had built for herself. "The detectives said you were there when they arrived."

Clara nodded, staring down into her lap as she remembered. It all still felt like a dream, a distant nightmare, that tomorrow she would wake in Aetius' arms and they would spend the day together as they always did, "I noticed something was wrong when he didn't pick me up from work," she explained. Her fingers clenched in the fabric of her robe as she said, bitterly, "I was too slow. I should have left earlier, should have done something more. He was fading when I got there, and I should have done something, looked for something to help him, but I couldn't leave him alone."

"The police say there was nothing that could have been done," Gaius cut in, his voice gruff and thick with pain. The ffedback from his subvocals made her translator pop uncomfortably. "I am thankful you stayed by his side – it is what he would have wanted. I'm sure he'll tell you as much when he awakes."

If he awakes. Clara pushed the traitorous thought aside – of course he would wake up. Aetius was strong, powerful, thick headed and stubborn as hell. There was no way a poison could keep him down for long.

Clara nodded instead of saying any of that, pressing her lips together. Aelia stepped back into the living room, four cups balanced precariously on two plates, and sat them on the coffee table. Clara thanked her, picking the lone black concoction amongst the other blueish drinks. They were silent for a moment, unable to say anything to fix the pain they were all feeling, but the company helped.

"We have been planning on staying here, in the Citadel, while our son recovers," Iovita said finally. "I wanted to give you the name of the hotel we will stay at, so you can contact us easily..."

Clara was shaking her head before she even finished, her fingers shaking, "No, no, you can't – Aetius wouldn't want you holed up in a hotel. Stay here. There's room, I can take the couch – it pulls out into a bed – and you two can have my room and the spare."

Aelia was the one to protest first, "No, we wont take your bed from you. I will sleep on the couch. Do not argue – I may be sick, but a night on the sofa won't kill me."

It was a bad joke, but Clara appreciated the sentiment.

"You – most of his stuff is here," she said after a moments hesitance, "I don't know – he had some pictures of you all together, I don't know if you want anything but feel free to take whatever."

"We will look," Iovita agreed, "But there is little to take. You loved him as dearly as us – to take what mementos you have of him would be cruel. We have our memories at home, memories spanning twenty five years. You had but one."

Clara couldn't keep the tears back this time, her shoulders shaking as she spoke – telling them stories that were once happy memories but were now bitter reminders that Aetius was holed up in the hospital dead to the world, machines the only things keeping him alive. They listened and shared in turn, and eventually her tears slowed and her speech steadied. They remained in her home for hours, until they were all tired and resigned themselves to visiting the hospital after they woke.

The only trouble was that sleep could not be found that night, even curled around Tito's pillow. His scent still lingered in the room, on the sheets, but the pillow smelled more of her than him. She lay for hours, tossing and turning until finally there was a timid knock on the door and Aelia slipped inside her chamber.

"I'm afraid I lied," she said bashfully, her mandibles twitching in embarrassment. "Your couch is dreadful. I would endure, but Aetius wouldn't approve."

Clara knew she was lying – Aetius often enthused about the couch, claiming no sofa should be as comfortable as that, but Clara knew what the real problem was. It was the same problem that she was having. Clara was used to sleeping with a turian at her side, his weight dipping the bed and rolling her towards him. Aelia was grieving, and Clara doubted the girl wished to be alone.

"You can stay in here," Clara offered. "It's a big bed."

Aelia slipped into place on her brothers side, curling under the covers and facing Clara with a curious gaze. She met it evenly in the dark, blinking sleepily and waiting for her to speak.

"What is my brother like?" Aelia asked finally, "I mean, I know him, but I haven't seen him in years. You've seen him every day for the past year. What is he like?"

Clara smiled softly, throwing herself back into memories, "He's kind. When I arrived here, I was alone and terrified and I got caught up in things better left to criminals. He didn't let that colour his opinion of me – he talked to me regardless. He hounded me for months, asking me out for drinks and convincing me to keep him company at work. I didn't think I was ready for a relationship, didn't think it was anywhere in the cards for my future, but Aetius…he made me reconsider."

Aelia smiled, "He was a good man. He defended me, when I was younger. I've always been small, for a turian, and I've always been fragile. I got teased for it – even after they discovered it was a disease. He would fight them off."

Clara could see it in her head, a younger Aetius protecting his sister, and it made her heart warm. "I was lucky to find him," she admitted, curling her fingers in the sheets. "He makes life better."

Aelia reached across the bed, placing her hand over Clara's and said, "_You_ make his life better. This last year was the happiest he has been in ages. I can never thank you enough for that."

Clara teared up, but Aelia said nothing, simply ran her thumb over the back of her hand in comfort.

...

The morning came quickly after that, and Clara didn't even recall falling asleep – one moment her eyes were closed on the cusp of unconsciousness, the next her alarm was ringing and she was rolling out of bed, chuckling as Aelia groaned and burrowed deeper under the covers.

Breakfast was a simple trip down the the Café, her boss offering her sad smiles and free drinks and condolences. Clara smiled and nodded and promised to return the work at the end of the week, and was quick to lead Aetius' family away and back to their son.

Somehow, it felt wrong to stand in the room with his family. Despite how nice they had been, how understanding and welcoming, it felt wrong to stand by and grieve alongside them when this was the first time they had seen their son in years; so she gave them space. She wandered into the gift shop, flipping through items with boredom clouding her senses – she barely even listened as the cashier explained the purpose of raised prices on drinks when Clara could simply cross the street and get twice as much for half the cost.

Eventually she wandered back to Aetius' room, and his family had settled down. Aelia was more than willing to share the couch with her, resting her head on her shoulder as they watched some strange turian television drama Clara had never heard of before.

Was this going to be her life now – standing in a hospital room, surrounded by newfound family, waiting for her lover to get better? She pursed her lips, tried to think. It wasn't that she wanted to abandon Aetius – not at all. She wanted nothing more than to sit here by his side every damn day until he woke up. But therein lies the problem – when would he wake up? Would he ever wake up?

She wanted to stay positive – she was positive, actually – but she couldn't be sure, she couldn't be certain, until she had that goddamn cure in her hands ready to go.

Sitting here, after a day away, she wondered if this is where she was meant to be. She knew where she wanted to be, where she saw herself: she wanted to be with Aetius. She wanted to be by his side, to hold him and love him so completely it put any other love to shame. She wanted to stay and let everyone else deal with Cerberus, deal with finding a cure.

But that meant there would be more turians out there, at risk of dying because some damn human supremacist organization wanted to test their fucking science experiments. Clara was more than willing to bet that finding a turian they were able to subdue out in the fucking traverse was next to impossible. That left places like the Citadel, like Elysium, like Illium. Places where people had families.

Clara wouldn't let that happen. Not while she was still breathing. Not when they had the cure.

Clara sighed, sleep still clinging to her eyes as she waited patiently for the machine to fill her cup with fresh coffee. Clara hadn't been a large fan of coffee back on Earth, had never really had the urge to drink it after she graduated. Now, however, she sorely needed the energy and this was the only way she could think of getting it.

A flash of red caught her attention, and she turned her head to inspect the distraction. She scowled when she recognized the source.

Nihlus. Of course.

She narrowed her eyes and turned back to her drink, pulling it from the machine and watching as steam curled from the lip. She stepped aside, letting the next person in line get their fill, and grabbed a lid. She paused as the slip of plastic slid into place.

Nihlus! Of course!

She turned and he was still there, waiting to talk to someone behind the desk. He seemed to be ignoring her – she doubted he didn't notice her. He was too well trained to let anyone in this room go unacknowledged. Too bad for him, she thought, and in an instant she was walking up to him and grabbing his forearm, spinning him to face her. He looked down at her and narrowed his eyes, mandibles flickering in irritation.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"You're trying to stop Cerberus," she said. "I'm going to help you."

His glare intensified, "Finally gonna cough up your old employers secrets?" he asked. She rolled her eyes.

"Christ on a bike, you're like a dog with a bone," she grumbled before saying firmly. "My lover is in a coma because of them – they have a cure. I want it."

He looked at her for a long moment, eyes hard as steel. "You really have no ties with them."

She tossed a hand in the air, exasperated, "Now he listens!" She shook her head and sighed. "Look, I can tell you where I got the information, but not here. Not now. Right now we just need to find out what the hell our plan is."

"I never said I was going to let you help," he said bluntly, pointing a finger at her. "You're a civilian."

"Aetius has been training me to fight for the last year," she said firmly, unyielding. "I'm not saying I'm perfect, but for now you just need information. Something – anything – to get you to Cerberus. While we're searching, you can train me."

"Why would I waste time training you when I can have any and everything the Council has to offer at my beck and call?" he asked.

"Because I'm committed," she responded calmly. "I'm an unknown. I have no records of notice, I barely exist. What better way to sneak into a super secret organization than with someone they don't know to look for?"

Nihlus stared at her for a long while, his mind racing behind piercing green eyes. For a moment, Clara worried that he would say no. How could she save Tito when her only shot at getting into Cerberus wouldn't help? She had nothing else to offer him, nothing else that would convince him to let her help.

"Fine," he agreed, sounding positively disgusted with the fact that he even had to trust her. "But I can change my mind whenever I want and send you right back here."

"If you do you have to have a good reason," she retorted quickly, "and if you do, you have to promise to find the cure for Aetius."

He nodded, extended a hand. "Deal."

It was an alliance born of convenience – Nihlus would need help taking down a multi-faceted terrorist organization of the scale Cerberus presented, and while she wasn't ideal she had a reason to fight, something to push her forward. It wasn't much, but it was the best he could hope for. She knew this. She used this.

"You know where I live," she stated, knowing it to be true even if he never said so – he had kept his eye on her for who knows how long, and she hadn't moved since she first came to the Citadel. There was no bother pretending. "Aetius' family is staying there, but they'll be here all day. You can fill me in then."

Nihlus nodded, short sharp and to the point. Clara turned away from him and headed back to Aetius, retaking her place by his bed and wrapping her hand around his.

For the first time that week, she felt hope. She knew, with sudden clarity, what she was going to do. She knew what she had to do. As she sipped her coffee, listening as his family talked and watched television, she wondered what would happen with them. She would tell them, of course – after all they had offered her, how could she not? She would let them stay in the house while she was gone, would get in touch with her bank and get them to pay rent from her generously sized savings while she was gone. After that, she would quit her job at the Cafe and let the museum know that something came up.

"Clara? Are you alright?" Iovita asked, reaching out and placing a caring hand on her shoulder. Clara smiled, and for the first time it didn't feel completely forced.

"I am," she said. "I have to go, I'll be back later tonight."

"Of course," his mother agreed, watching curiously as Clara stood and abandoned the room, giving Aetius' hand a final squeeze on the way.

Nihlus didn't leave her waiting long – barely five minutes after returning home he was knocking at her door, impatient as ever. Clara wished the game had told them exactly how much of an ass Nihlus was; she could have prepared herself better that way. As she opened the door he pushed past, all business.

"We leave tomorrow," he said shortly, "I have a private ship that can take us throughout the universe as needed. We can use the travel time to prepare."

Clara blinked, her throat drying out slightly as his words sank in. "So soon? Don't you have to, I don't know, research?"

"I can gather information better from my ship," he said as he walked through the living room towards her kitchen, forcing her to give chase. "I have information networks set up that I can tap into with ease, but I need my ship – and my crew – to do so."

"Well, what about my training?" she asked, twisting her hands in her shirt.

"Less questions are asked on my ship," he responded. Clara pursed her lips together – it was as if he had anticipated the inevitable onslaught. She shouldn't have been surprised; he was a Spectre, after all.

"Wont the Council wonder why you're taking a civilian on board?" she asked.

Nihlus looked at her, a sly gleam in his emerald eyes: "You think you're the first human I've had on my ship without the Council knowing?"

The innuendo in his tone didn't escape her. She blushed and brushed past him, pulling down the makings for tea and setting to work an instant later. "Well, if you're quite done, I need to set things up for while I'm gone."

"Have you forgotten something?" Nihlus asked, and she turned to send him a questioning look. His arms were crossed over his chest as he leaned against the wall, the picture of nonchalance. One glance at his eyes told her he was anything but relaxed, though. "How did you get your information on Cerberus?"

She sighed heavily – she had forgotten that little detail. How was she going to explain this? 'Well, I used to play this game called Mass Effect for shits and giggles, but one day I woke up and everything in the game was coming true!' No. There was no way on Earth – or Thessia, or Tuchanka, or any other planet you could name – that would pass as a satisfactory explanation.

"You aren't going to believe me," she cautioned.

"I tend not to believe anything you say," he retorted dryly. "Considering your history. Or lack-thereof."

Clara pursed her lips to keep from snapping, and instead focused her attention on the tea kettle. Telling him that she was from a world where all this existed in game-form was not an option – she had to settle for something a little more probable.

"I'm from the future."

Shit. That was not what she had intended.

She could feel the turian's eyes boring into her, staring her down, but she refused to face him. She was silent as she very patiently waited for the water to boil. After a moment, he simply couldn't take the silence any more.

"Prove it."

Clara turned and looked at him, surprised. "No disbelief? No demands for the truth? No calling the crazy squad and shipping me off to the nearest asylum?"

"While those options haven't been ruled out, I figured I would be nice and give you the chance to explain your specific brand of crazy," he said just as quickly, tone as dry as ever. She even laughed a bit. Her laugh turned to a sigh and she ran her fingers through her hair.

"How do you want me to prove it?" she asked, leaning against the counter.

Nihlus shrugged, holding out his hands in an open gesture. "Surprise me."

Her lips pressed together anxiously as she bit at the inside of her cheek, considering the red-plated turian. She was running through all the information she had stored away about Mass Effect over the years, trying to figure out the most relevant and least consequential piece of information she could offer him. The answer was surprisingly easy to find.

"The turian military and the Systems Alliance have been discussing the possibility of creating a frigate, with the backing of the Council." She hesitated, concerned that maybe the information wasn't enough, and continued. "You've also been looking into Shepard," she said, very carefully leaving out the ambiguous first name. "You're considering them for a position as the first human spectre."

Nihlus blinked and, for the first time, seemed to have no response. Then he said: "I hadn't told anyone about that. Not even the council, especially considering how she handled Torfan. If you know, does that mean I'm successful?"

A blasé shrug kept her from giving away her secrets, hid the surprise and strange satisfaction that settled in her stomach. A female Shepard wasn't what she had expected, but she wouldn't have it any other way. The world needed more badass female role models, and knowing that Shepard was one of them gave her the inane urge to smile. She instead turned back to the kettle as it whistled. "I can't say either way."

"You're a civilian. The only way you would know is if it was made public." He countered.

"Unless they messed up big time – enough to get noticed." she said calmly.

There was another moments silence, his eyes burning against her back as she poured herself a cup of tea. Then, "How did you come back in time? Why?"

"It was an accident," she said – one of the first honest things she could say. "The tech wasn't even supposed to propel people through time, but it did. I was just a scientist sitting in on a demonstration, but the angle was off just slightly. I got caught in the beam and wound up here."

"Technology doesn't suddenly do something outside of its programming," Nihlus argued. Even though she refused to turn and face him she knew he was staring her down – she could feel it in the prickling at her neck. "You must have missed something."

"What do you want me to say?" Clara demanded, turning and fixing him with her most honest stare. "That this is some sort of space magic? That my colleagues lied and set me up? That this is all part of some cosmic plan to save a world that doesn't need saving? By coming back here, I could destroy everything with one wrong move."

"Then why try?" He demanded, taking a step towards her and fixing her with that damn stare – the one that made you think he could read your thoughts, made you think he knew everything you were going to say before the words could dare form on your tongue. It was one of the many things she hated about him: his damn hubris. Maybe that was why BioWare had killed him off, a lesson in humility.

She didn't let him change her mind, not this time. She stood firm, glaring up at him: "I have a chance to save people. Good people, who didn't deserve to die. I have the chance to fix everything that went wrong."

"And what if they're supposed to go wrong?" he countered just as quickly, one step ahead, and her blood boiled. "What if these people are supposed to die? What if you can't fix it?"

"Then I fix it," she snapped. "What do you want me to say? You know damn well if you went back in time, could stop the First Contact War, could stop so many turians from dying needlessly, you would do it. You know this. What do you think I'm doing?"

"Meddling," he said calmly. "You're meddling."

"Are you going to stop me?" she asked. She threw out her hands, gesturing wildly as she said: "This whole thing, this whole plan to stop Cerberus? It has nothing to do with what's to come. It has nothing to do with Shepard. It has nothing to do with saving the world. This is about me, saving the man I love. This is about revenge. Surely you can understand that?"

He stared her down, his mandibles pressed tight as he considered her. She couldn't read his mind, couldn't read his expression even after her time with Tito, and it set her on edge. She resisted the urge to shuffle back and forth, to force him to respond.

"Fine," he said, and despite his acquiesce it was clear he wanted nothing more than to rip her argument apart. "Fine. I get it. You've got 12 hours to pack. If you aren't on the dock, I'm leaving without you."

Nihlus turned and stalked away, as done with the conversation as she was. She waited until the door slammed shut behind him, until she was certain he was away, before she slid down to the floor and let her head fall back against the cabinet.

She closed her eyes and drew in a shaky breath, pressing her palms to her eyes until she saw stars.

This was going to be hell.

...

A/N: And there we have Nihlus, that jerk.

No, but I love Nihlus. I really do, I even love him when he's a jerk like this. I think that, considering the information he has, he's acting very reasonably. Clara is an unknown. He has to be cautious.

And we have our motivation.

So, I'll have you know, in the original draft of this Aerius died straight away. There was no beacon of hope. There was no light at the end of the tunnel, and I realized that would never work. Because even though Clara puts on a brave face and she adapts, you could quite clearly see in this chapter that she's still human and she's still very, very weak. Clara needed something to push her forward, and revenge alone wasn't enough. She needed hope, otherwise her integrity wouldn't survive through what is to come.

Thank you again for sticking through with me this long. Next time, we meet Nihlus' crew. Also we're about halfway through Act I.

Lots of Love;

B.E. Nomads


	6. Act 1, Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

Clara had at least three panic attacks as she packed, throwing necessities into a duffle and then unpacking, only to repack, only to unpack once again. She'd barely managed to pull herself together when Tito's family returned from the hospital, and sitting down to explain that she had to leave was…difficult. She couldn't tell them her plan, not really, but she promised them that it was for the best. She promised that it was a necessary evil, that she would return and Aetius would get better and everything would be fine.

They were hard-pressed to believe her, but she wasn't their responsibility: they let her go with strained smiles of false understanding.

And now she was here, standing at one of the many docks and staring up at the sharp angles of a turian frigate: _Actium_ was painted in sleek white lettering along its dark, metallic hull. Her breath caught in her chest. This was more than she had ever expected to see, in all her life, and even though she had been living on a space station for the last 15 months, it all felt so normal. This was a ship – a ship that would travel from system to system at FTL speeds, protected by GUARDIAN lasers, and suddenly she was completely and totally overwhelmed.

"You're on time," Nihlus said from behind her, the sudden appearance making her heart leap up in her throat. She turned and watched as he walked past her and into the ship – his ship. Christ on a bike, she was going on a ship with Nihlus Kryik and even though she hated the bastard the fangirl inside of her that had been muffled for months came back full force. She barely kept from squealing as she scrambled after him, duffle thrown over her shoulder.

(It was strange, realizing that just over a year ago she would have had difficulty carting the bag around one-handed. If she had known coming to a different universe would force her to work out like this, she would have done it sooner.)

Nihlus seemed to ignore her as he lead her through the ship, so different and yet so similar to the layout she knew of the _SSV Normandy,_ a ship that hadn't even been created yet. She ignored the curious turian eyes that lingered on her as she passed, crossing her fingers and praying that everything would go smoothly.

After taking a set of stairs down to a lower level, Nihlus directed her to a door. Within was a sizeable room, two bunks pressed against the walls. There was another turian in the room, and a quick glance at the shorter fringe and slighter frame told her it was a female.

"Meriones." Nihlus barked. The turian straightened immediately, saluting the Spectre.

"Kryik, sir."

"This is Clara Johnson," he continued, and the females eyes darted to Clara curiously. "She's a specialist regarding Cerberus. I'm leaving you in charge of escorting her around the ship until she proves useful."

Clara scowled at the insult, while Meriones appeared completely unfazed as she nodded. "Sir."

Nihlus turned and left, and Clara swallowed down her anxiety as Meriones stared her down with bright blue eyes. Her plates were dark – near black – and the contrast of her sparse white colony marks was intense. There was something oddly beautiful about the female, and it took all Clara had to stop staring.

"The top bunk on the left is open." Meriones said, breaking the silence. Clara smiled.

"Thank you. I, um. I've never been on a ship before. I'm a bit out of my league." She admitted. Meriones' face remained impassive, only serving to set Clara on edge even more.

"If Kryik wants you on this ship, then you're useful," she said calmly, watching with hawk-like eyes as Clara tossed her bag onto her bunk. "This is a small ship, so we all double up on duties. Until we figure out what you're supposed to do, stay out of the way."

Though her words were harsh, her tone wasn't: she was simply stating facts. Clara could appreciate that, even if it left a bad taste in her mouth. She nodded, running her hands over her biceps as she tried to figure out what she was supposed to do with herself. Meriones seemed to take pity on her. "I'll show you around the ship, introduce you to everyone," she offered. "If you're going to be here, the crew is going to have to get used to seeing you around. Nihlus rarely brings a human on board, and he never brings someone who isn't of value."

Clara swallowed and nodded, suddenly acutely aware of the pressure placed directly on her shoulders. Christ, what had she gotten herself into? She barely had a chance to think over what Meriones had said before the turian was brushing past her, forcing Clara to turn on her heels and follow. She ignored the curious glances of other turians, and she was struck with the realization that BioWare really hadn't done the race justice. All through the game, turians had the same basic colour schemes: earthy tones, tans and greys, paired with the same three facial markings. While they were generally accurate, here and up close she could see the shades of colours that reflected in their plates, the subtle hues that helped differentiate one turian from another. On the Citadel, they had all looked the same: brown plates, dark eyes. Here, she could tell they were from all over Palaven – possibly all over the universe. It made her feel incredibly small.

For the first time since her initial arrival on the Citadel all those months ago, Clara felt horribly and truly out of her depth.

...

The _Actium_ functioned on a skeleton crew at all times, and there were only eleven main crew members on board. Nihlus made twelve, and Clara was the new number thirteen. (She was very much aware that this was either an omen of things to come, or a sick cosmic joke.) Aside from the main group there were only 7 other turians on board, and Clara never once saw them deviate from their jobs long enough to chat. Not that she did much chatting on board anyway.

She had seen them all somewhere or another but had yet to talk to any of them outside of the brief introduction Meriones provided. In some cases, she was thankful for that; the navigator, Nestor, was a gruff turian who acted like the Relay 314 Incident just ended yesterday. Meriones took pity on Clara and ushered her away before Nestor could dream of sucking her in to his anti-Alliance rant, staring Clara as the main offender. Tydeus, the pilot, was just as bad but for a totally different reason. He had reached the "old gossipy" stage of his life, and if was only with Meriones' warning that she managed to avoid giving him many juicy gossip to spread about. He was a good pilot, though. That's why Nihlus kept him on board.

After that, she was pushed to the side and left to settle in on her own. It was now one week since departure: one week, and Nihlus was only just talking to her about training. She didn't want to ask questions, didn't want to widen the already significant divide between them, but she wanted to know so badly what they were going to do. Was it going to be like Mass Effect, except instead of answering messages from the Alliance they would be zooming around the galaxy at the Hierarchies will? Or were they completely independent, no influence from anywhere but the Council? Nihlus' colony marks were very similar to the turian councilors, perhaps they knew each other?

(Except, that was a completely stupid thought because Aetius had told her that similar facial markings didn't mean they were related, it didn't even mean they knew each other, and why was it she had forgotten all that Tito had taught her?)

Nihlus came in, forcing her from her thoughts, and she could tell that this was going to be a long day. He was gruff, eyes sharp and mandibles pressed tightly to his face; it was clear that the spectre was in a horrible mood. She swallowed down any anxiety and stood in the cargo hold, stretching her muscles and making sure she wasn't a ball of tension when he finally decided to start things out.

God, what had she gotten herself into?

"You mentioned you had some training," Nihlus finally barked, sharp green eyes piercing into her. "How much?"

Clara paused mid-stretch to run her fingers through her hair and toss the annoying strands into a ponytail. "Ti – Aetius drilled me for about a year, said he was using standard turian military drills. Before he –" She stopped, swallowed, and continued. "Before the attack, he said that there wasn't anything else he could teach me."

"What was his training?" Nihlus demanded. Clara shrugged.

"Standard military training, I guess," she answered, suddenly aware that she knew very little about Tito's life before her. "He kept in shape because of his job. He was a good fighter."

"That tells me absolutely nothing," He growled, and Clara was starting to really regret making this deal with him. She didn't know who spat in his cheerios, but she had a feeling that all this anger was going to wind up putting her in the med bay. "We're sparring. Come at me with all you have. I'll figure out what I'm supposed to do with you from there."

Clara took a deep, anxious breath and let it out. She swallowed down her anxiety as she fell into position, her arms loose and at the ready while Nihlus just stood there as if he had a thousand better things to do today.

Her temper flared. She struck out. Nihlus deflected the hit easily, smacking her hand aside and countering with a quick jab of his fingers to her gut. She grunted as she twisted to avoid the hit, lifting her foot to catch his jaw only to find his hand at her foot, twisting her and slamming her to the mat. She didn't let him hold her, pulling herself free with a clever twist and jumping back to her feet.

His face was impassive as she lashed out again, fist to his face, and dodged at the last second. She kicked out, hoping to catch his waist, but he anticipated that. He grabbed her calf and pushed her back, an amused gleam to his eyes as she stumbled and nearly fell. She tried to reel in her temper, tried to stay impassive, and instead of throwing herself at him blindly she lashed out with a timed strike to his throat. Nihlus weaved away, and before she could even hope to turn and counter, he slammed his fist into her side. She collapsed backward with a gasp, pain making her head spin, and she was barely aware enough to roll out of the way of his follow up attack. She pushed herself to her feet, and lunged. Her fist clipped his shoulder, and she didn't even have to see his face to know that he was done toying around.

He lashed out now, his moves clear and precise and so much more than any of the hits she had sent his way. He was a complete level above her: he was a god, and she a mere mortal with illusions of grandeur. Any hope she had of beating his ego was shattered with a fist to the gut, a three-fingered hand grabbing the back of her neck and forcing her to her knees. She was down. She cursed, but the feel of his talons pressing to the delicate skin above her jugular forced her to pause.

"That was pathetic," he said, his grip keeping her from meeting his gaze. "You know the moves, you know the logic, but you don't know the rhythm. Obviously, Aetius wasn't as good as you thought."

The snarl that slipped from her lips surprised her, but he didn't even flinch. He released her and she fell to her back on mat, chest heaving as she brought in gulps of air. He didn't even look fazed.

"We start tomorrow with the basics," he ordered as he turned and abandoned the room. "It's going to take time before you can even think of joining the drop team."

The door slid closed behind him, and it took all Clara had to keep the tears of aggravation from falling. What had she gotten herself into? She sighed and started the irritating process of cataloguing her injuries: a split lip, a thin gash on her forehead, several bruises along her arms, scratches on her throat from his talons, a mean bruise on her gut. God, she'd never been this battered before in her life.

"You should go see Sorthem in the med bay," a flanging voice said. Clara span around as quickly as her bruised body would allow and spotted Ajax. He was stocky, even for a turian, with dark brown plates and ornate cream-coloured markings. He didn't talk much, and according to Meriones he was the shuttle pilot and an engineer who kept to the cargo hold, elbow deep in the insides of the shiny new IFV.

"I'm fine," she murmured, pressing her hand to her eye only to grimace.

"Kryik will only go harder on you if he see's you aren't takin' care of yourself," he explained, turning back to the vehicle. "Sorthem'll patch you up. Makes a good impression if you keep yourself in fightin' shape."

Part of Clara wanted to argue that she wasn't even on the register, that she wasn't part of the drop team and that there was a huge chance that she wouldn't ever be a part of the ground team. Not when Nihlus seemed intent on keeping her useless. But Ajax made a good point, and her ribs did feel sore. With a sigh she pushed herself up, wincing as her arms protested.

Sorthem was a salarian, the only one on the ship, with mottle green and blue skin and large purple eyes. He was one of two medical officers on call, and the necessity of two doctors made Clara wonder just how many injuries fell on the crew. To his credit, Sorthem was good – he was no Mordin as far as Clara could tell, but he was always quick and concise. Even if he did talk your ear off the whole time you were on the bed.

"Ah, Miss Johnson," he greeted, turning to face her with rapidly-blinking eyes. "I wondered how long it would take for you to come up here."

She quirked a brow as she continued into the room, wincing as she pushed herself up onto the slab, "You expected me today?"

"Kryik was in a noticeably bad mood," he explained, stepping forward to examine the abrasions on her face. "You are the only one on board known to aggravate him like this. Also, Ajax called ahead to give me time to prepare."

Clara murmured complaints under her breath as the salarian dabbed at the more painful injuries on her forehead, cleaning away the blood that had stained the surrounding skin. His moves were quick and efficient, but still firm enough to cause her to wince.

"You're either very brave or very stupid," another voice toned in, causing Clara to jump. She winced as pain shot through her ribs and murmured an apology at Sorthem, who sent her a chastising look. She turned her head slowly, ignoring the salarians exploring hands as he catalogued her wounds.

"I'm inclined to agree with you," she responded, throwing the white-plated turian a smile.

Peleus was this ships version of Doctor Chakwas – that was the best way Clara could explain him. She believed the official title was Chief Medical Officer. He was also the most recognizable crew member. From what she had learned, his eyes used to be reddish-pink and his colony marks were tattooed in deep red to match them. Now, his eyes were replaced with the strange white-blue implants that Clara had only ever seen in the Illusive Man. He didn't talk about it much, but Clara knew enough to know what had happened – there was no way Peleus could have been a medic, not when his eyes were failing. It came down to finding a new job, giving up the one thing he enjoyed, or shelling out for a procedure that could either render him blind or give him the one thing he needed.

Clara liked him, if only for that. It spoke endlessly about his character. Albinism was extremely rare in turian society, and in most cases came with extreme complications due to Palaven's increased radiation levels. Few ever survived infancy. Peleus had been born on the Citadel, though, and the moment they realized returning to Palaven was a risk they set up shop there. He was exempted from traditional boot cam, the risk of exposure on Palaven way too high, but that didn't keep him from doing his part. She didn't know how old he was, nor how long he had been on the _Actium_, but she knew that he'd spent years learning his trade.

She knew, if Tito were here, they would have gotten along.

"Did you backtalk?" Peleus asked, and though his tone was friendly his eyes still set her on edge.

"Only a little."

Peleus shook his head, mandibles flickering in chastisement. "Nihuls already doesn't like you. Maybe you should try not talking?"

"Right," she drawled, flinching away as Sorthem poked at her ribs. "Because that's something I'm capable of."

"Maybe you should consider it when he has his talons at your throat," he countered just as quickly, looking pointedly at the angry red lines.

"Three bruised ribs," Sorthem interrupted, pulling back with another rapid blinking session. "Peleus is right. Next time, Kryik may just decapitate you completely."

It was a joke – she could tell by his stupid little salarian smile – but it did little to make her feel better. In fact, it even made her feel a little sick.

Thankfully Peleus was slightly more in-tune with her emotions and came to her rescue. "As long as you show that you can actually pull your weight, Nihlus will leave you alone. Or at least stop beating you up so badly."

"I can't pull my weight until I know what I'm supposed to do," she protested.

"Have you spoken with the XO?"

Clara groaned, and this time it wasn't due to pain. "Nestor hates me. Every time I even make a move to talk to him he just darts away. Either that or he glares at me until I decide that going to my room is way more interesting. And less fatal."

"I would suggest talking to Nestor," Sorthem interjected, "Kryik placed him in charge of the schedules. He will know where you are needed."

"He'll probably put me on latrine duty," Clara murmured. Neither disagreed, and it only made her stomach sink faster.

"You're good to go," Sorthem finally said, and she pulled down her shirt. "Go talk to Nestor."

The medics fixed her with firm gazes, Peleus' infinitely more effective than Sorthem's, and that was what pressed her to trudge her way from the med bay to the CIC. Nihlus was nowhere in sight, no doubt in his quarters grumbling and planning various ways to make her suffer, and the navigator stood there in all his old, crotchety, turian glory. He was focused on a datapad, reading through something no doubt important. (An amused part of her noted that the orange glow of the pad matched the colour of his markings almost perfectly). The moment she approached his gaze flickered up and focused on her.

"What?" he demanded sharply, lowering the pad. "Yes, we have a stock of levo food supplies, and if you don't like Salarian rations then you're just going to have to get used to it. I don't know how they pamper their soldiers on Alliance ships, but we don't have time to stop and get you something special."

Clara bristled and took a deep breath in through her nose, trying to keep her temper. "Actually, I was hoping you could put me down for some sort of duty, so I could pitch my own weight."

Nestor stared at her long and hard, evaluating her, and for a horrible moment she thought he was going to turn her away. Finally, he spoke.

"Are you good with tech?" he asked. Clara hesitated. Was she? She had been back in 2012, she'd worked with tech all the time, and she'd worked her ass off when she came here. Considering the huge technological gap, her quick adaption had to speak for something. Right?

"Yeah," she said finally, "Yeah. I'm good with tech."

"Lycia's been looking for an extra hand," he said. "She's in engineering. I'll send her a message to let her know you're on your way down."

Nestor turned his back to her, turning his eyes back to his data pad, and Clara took that as a chance to escape.

The trip to engineering was quick – though elevators were an option, emergency stairwells connected each level. Technically speaking the stairs were supposed to remain clear, but she preferred to use them. More work, yes, but it was so much faster that it was laughable. She had always thought that the elevators simply moved slowly because the game needed to load, but this was almost ridiculous. 160 years in the future and they couldn't even make a decent elevator.

Lycia was the only other female on bored, and while she was technically Clara's other room mate she spent so much of her time with the engines that she had her own cot set up by the controls. She was easily the smallest turian on ship, and Clara could only imagine that had aided her in mastering her craft – slim fingers made it easier to finagle with the various bits and bobs that kept the frigate afloat.

"You must be Clara," Lycia said as the door slid shut, turning away from the screen to offer her a smile. "Nestor warned me you were coming."

"Warned?" Clara asked hesitantly. Lycia laughed.

"Don't sound so nervous. He may be as bigoted as a salarian during mating season, but he's the only one. Nihlus doesn't tolerate any sort of that nonsense on ship, not when he's got his sights set on a potential new spectre," She glanced away slyly. "Not that I'm supposed to know that."

Clara relaxed significantly, offering the female a smile, "Thanks. I'm still so new to all this, settling in is rough work."

Lycia waved her off, "It's difficult for everyone at first, don't worry about it. Now, Nestor said you had some tech abilities?"

"I mean, I'm no where near good enough to maintain a ship," Clara quickly clarified. "But, before I – I've improved really quickly in a short span of time, and I have some basic knowledge. If you're willing to teach me, then I'm more than willing to help."

Lycia looked at her for a long moment, pressing a finger to her mouth as she considered. Clara resisted the urge to fidget, even knowing that the turian seemed to at least like her a little. It was clear that Lycia had a very clear division between personal and professional opinion.

"Alright," she nodded. "Alright. I'll give you a try. If you've got any knack for this, it'll show, and I'll train you. If you don't, no skin off my back. Nestor'll just find you something else to do."

The thought alone was enough to solidify her will, her determination to do this. Walking back and looking Nestor in his pale-plated face, defeated and living up to every low-opinion he held of the human race, was not an option.

...

A/N: And we have the crew! Hopefully I've painted some interesting pictures and provided you with some colourful characters to catch your attention. Don't worry, I don't bog you down with a whole lot of OC explanations and background stories and just...irritating things. I just give you the characters as they are. You can infer your own explanations as to how they act, because unless it becomes relevant I wont say.

Except for Peleus. I love that fucker.

Lots of Love;

B.E. Nomads.


	7. Act 1, Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

_A/N: Early update, because it's Halloween. Enjoy!_

One month of training felt more like one year. Training with Nihlus was a completely different creature from training with Aetius – this was brutal. This was a step away from murder. Though Nihlus never stuck it to her as badly as he had the first spar, he never held back – she lost count of the bruised ribs after 13. However, as much as she wanted to protest and cry maltreatment, she knew that she had improved. Nihlus had a way of motivating people to do their best, pushing them and pushing them until their either broke under the pressure or rose to the occasion.

She wondered if he learned that from Saren.

Today she was learning the ends and outs of the most up-to-date weaponry they had. She would be lying if she said she wasn't nervous. Hand to hand she was good, she could take out the standard fighter easily as long as their power level didn't go past a certain point. Weapons were a different matter. She knew how to work a pistol, how to aim and fire and hit her mark, but this was different. Lycia was prepping her to be a tech master, and it was clear what Nihlus wanted her to be to the team.

It took more than a pistol to be an effective Infiltrator. It took a sniper. It took the best hand to hand combat skills available. It took more than Clara thought she had to give, but she would be damned if she gave any less than her all. Tito needed her. She wasn't going to let him down now.

The door to the cargo bay opened and a brown-plated turian walked in, dressed in full desert camo armor with a Kuwashii visor over his right eye and a Mantis balanced on his shoulder. Her heart stuttered.

"Nihlus put me in charge of your training today," Creion said calmly as the door slid shut. "He wants to run you through with every weapon, see what you're suited for, and then specialize from there."

"Am I allowed to ask what Nihlus is doing?" Clara asked curiously, not wanting to press but also wanting to know why he wanted to brush her off on someone else. She thought she was improving – he hadn't said as much, but it was clear when she landed a few punches that there was some sort of difference.

"A mission. He's following up on some intel with Meriones and Boreas," he placed his rifle on the weapons bench gently, almost reverently, and picked up a pistol. "We're starting out simple. Nihlus said you already had some weapons training?"

Clara quickly inspected her new weapon, nodding as she cocked it. "I know how to use a pistol and a combat knife, that's it. We – I never had the chance to learn anything more."

If Creion noticed her pause, he didn't mention it. He just pointed her towards the targets set up in the back corner, pressed into a padded wall that would keep the hull from suffering any major damage. She knew, logically, that a single bullet wasn't going to be the end of the _Actium_, but she also knew that any weak point was no-bueno.

"Show me what you can do."

Clara nodded, inhaling deeply and setting herself up. She stared at the target for a moment, gathering her wits about her before taking aim and firing. She glanced at Creion, and when he said nothing she took that as a cue to continued. She fired until her pistol neared overheat before he called for her to stop. She lowered the pistol, keeping the barrel pointed towards the ground as he stepped up to the targets.

"Decent aim," he commented, arms crossed over his chest. "Lacking finesse, but over all effective."

She pressed her lips together, brows furrowing in confusion. Was that a compliment?

He stepped aside, holding out a hand for her to place the pistol in. He put the weapon on the bench and handed her a shotgun. The weight was a stark difference, and now her nerves started acting up.

"Keep the stock tucked in tight," he instructed, guiding her into position before stepping back to observe. "Watch out for the recoil."

With those last warnings he quieted, waiting for her to take a shot. She swallowed down her anxiety, took in a deep breath, and aimed. Her finger hesitated on the trigger, and it wasn't until she realized she had been staring at the target for well over 30 seconds that she fired.

"Jesus fuck!" she yelled over the explosion of the gun, the recoil enough to make her shoulder ache. It would bruise, no doubt, but it could have been worse. Creion glanced at the target and shook his head. Not a single tear – it appeared the padding got the full brunt of the attack.

"Moving on…" he murmured, snatching the shotgun away and handing her an assault rifle. She shook her head, raising her hands up and refusing to touch the metal weapon.

"No way in hell," she protested. "I could barely handle a shotgun, what makes you think I'll be of any use with an assault rifle, especially in an enclosed environment like this? I could kill you!"

His mandibles flickered slightly, a small motion that was the only indicator of his amusement. "Fine. We'll save that for when we have some ground time. We'll skip to the sniper."

Clara fixed him with a long stare: "You want me to try a sniper rifle."

"One shot, and the recoil might dislocate your shoulder but you wont lose control and accidentally shoot me in the leg. Not if you keep it aimed at the target."

He fished through the weapons rack, looking for a smaller rifle that wouldn't completely remove her poor shoulder, and left her to stew. She had the feeling this was another lesson that was going to leave her in the med bay under Sorthem's not-so-tender hands. He handed her a rifle, and this time he had the decency to at least show her how to hold it.

As she took aim at the final target, her mind was filled with the sound of an old Christmas classic: Ralphie Parker, sitting in class near Christmas time while all his friends and his teacher jeered at him, yelling "You'll shoot your eye out!" over and over. Suddenly, _she_ was Ralphie Parker, and she was the one who was stupid enough to ask for a Red Ryder BB Gun when she was already warned about the hazards of gunfire. It was Nihlus and Nestor and Aetius and hell, even Shepard, standing around her yelling "You'll shoot your eye out! You'll shoot your eye out!"

She panicked, completely and utterly convinced that she was going to shoot herself in the eye, and pulled the trigger.

The recoil sent the butt of the gun slamming into her shoulder, and fuck a duck it was easily one of the most painful things she had ever experienced. She cursed up a storm and let the gun slip from her grip. Creion ignored her cursing (the barefaced bastard) and instead stepped up to the target. She wasn't looking at him, focusing her attention on her shoulder – definitely dislocated, and she didn't need a god damn medic to tell her that – and pressing hesitant fingers to the injured area.

She immediately and intensely regretted her decision.

"You hit dead center."

Clara paused, the pain forgotten for an instant as Creion's words filtered through. She looked at him, mouth ajar, and he just looked at her with that infuriatingly calm expression. "I what?"

He pointed to the target, and sure enough there in the center of the page was a single hole. Bulls-eye.

"Well I'll be damned," she said, awestruck. A slightly silly smile slipped over her lips as she said: "Take that, Miss Shields."

Creion fixed her with a mildly concerned look before he headed over, kneeling by her side to inspect her shoulder. He reached out to poke it and she flinched away before he even got close.

"I don't need to be a medic to tell you this shit's dislocated," she snapped, and to her surprise he laughed.

"Come on, I'll help you up to Doctor Hierax," he offered, wrapping an arm around her waist and helping her to her feet.

Thankfully, Peleus really was the one on duty when Creion finished carting her up to the med bay. She didn't know where Sorthem was, but for once she wasn't complaining – he was good, but if he cracked one more joke about her injuries and the potentially fatal scenarios they could cause, she was going to lose her mind. Decapitation by the Spectre in charge was only an amusing threat the first five times.

"You've barely been here a month and already you're our most popular visitor," Peleus commented, mandibles pressed close in concentration as he examined her shoulder. "I almost think you like letting Sorthem poke at you."

"The only thing I like more is when he jokes about Nihlus killing me," she grumbled, wincing as he pressed his fingers to her shoulder.

Peleus ignored her, instead saying: "You're lucky this isn't worse. It'll heal up in a few days. I'm going to put it in the splint and I want you to keep it on till you go to bed. When you wake up I want you to just do some simple stretches, try to minimize your range of use. If you do what you're told, it should be fine by day three."

"So…that means training is on hold, doesn't it."

"Unless you want to re-dislocate your shoulder and possibly cause even more damage, then, yes," He said bluntly. "Stick with your engineer training for now."

Clara sighed, but nodded. Creion handed her shirt back just in time for Nihlus to march through, his two team mates trailing behind him with dour faces. He didn't spare Clara even the slightest glance as he approached Peleus.

"Hierax, Boreas took some heavy fire," he barked, and behind him Meriones guided a slight, male turian to an open pallet. "It was an ambush. Our informant gave us a bad lead. Cerberus was waiting."

Clara pulled on her shirt, unable to stop looking at the impossibly black clan markings of Boreas. Juxtaposed next to Meriones and Nihlus, Clara could only imagine the image of terror that they created. His pale purple plates gleamed even know, when his face was twisted in pain and his armor littered with holes. Creion grimaced at the sight of his squad mate.

"You should have taken me down with you, sir." He said, stepping up to the CO without even the slightest hint of fear. "I could have had their backs while you infiltrated the base."

"We needed you here," Nihlus denied firmly, eyes flickering to Clara. "The sooner she's of use, the sooner we close in on Cerberus. If Boreas' biotics couldn't protect him from that turret, what makes you think you could have?"

It was a verbal smack in the face, one that made even Clara reel, but Creion showed no outward reaction. In fact, she wasn't even certain if it offended him at all.

"You went down in a group of three knowing full well that you would leave formation, sir," he dared to say, face calm. "While Meriones and Boreas are both capable fighters, we're used to working in a trio formation. Meriones' isn't able to take out oncoming waves and simultaneously watch their backs. That's my job, sir."

Even Peleus, who was always calm, looked uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was heading. His only saving grace was that Boreas needed medical attention. He focused his energies on stripping the patient of his underarmor, cutting through the material that stuck to his flesh, sealed in place by blue blood and medigel.

"We'll discuss this later, soldier," Nihlus responded, eyes gleaming angrily. "Meriones, escort Creion back to his quarters. I want everyone back in place for evasive maneuvers."

"What?" Clara asked, suddenly very interested in what Nihlus had to say. "Evasive maneuvers?"

The spectre turned his eyes on her, stern as ever, but she refused to retract her question. "Cerberus was preparing to send a fleet of fighters after us in an attempt to regain what little intel we did manage to salvage. Lycia will need a hand down in engineering. Looks like this is your time to shine, Johnson."

Clara hesitated only a moment before nodding, murmuring the barest affirmative before she hurried from the lab and down towards engineering. Lycia looked up curiously, opening her mouth to ask why she was there off-duty, when Tydeus' voice filtered in through the intercom.

_"Brace for evasive maneuvers, we've got a tail!"_

Lycia's entire persona changed – her face hardened and she pushed Clara towards the terminals, "Keep your eyes on the energy levels, make sure not a damned one overflows."

Clara nodded, barely able to take a breath as she kept her eyes on the ships vitals. At her left was Astyanax, the only other engineer on hand, and judging by the intense fluttering of his mandibles he was more than a little nervous.

Time passed like minutes were hours, Clara's keen eyes focused on the levels and tweaking appropriately as Tydeus guided the ship between the lasers fired after them. The occasional boom that filtered through the metal walls let her know that Meriones had taken her position as Gunnery Chief and was giving the Cerberus fighters hell.

_"Approaching the Mass Relay – hold on to your plates!"_

Clara held her breath, heart hammering in her chest as she counted her blessings and prayed that the core held strong. The ship vibrated, a barely noticeable sensation as the relay pulled them into it's beam, and almost as soon as the chase had begun it stopped. She didn't dare breath though, not yet, not when there was the possibility that the fighters would follow them.

There was a moments silence, then: _"We lost them."_

"Oh, thank god," she gasped, her air leaving her as she braced her arms against the terminal. Astyanax gave her good shoulder a clumsy pat, his mandibles still flickering even though they were out of the fire. Lycia came up between them, face still tense.

"Good work you two," she said calmly. "Clara, with me. I just got the memo from Nihlus: you're down here for the rest of the week."

She tailed after her, watching closely as Lycia went through the various bits and bobs that kept the ship in the air, explaining their uses and how they worked. Clara tried to keep up – she really did – but there was just so much information that it felt as if her brain were going to start leaking out of her ears.

"Go on down, make sure everything's in place, I'm gonna go check the levels," Lycia instructed. Clara nodded, sighing as she prepared for another boring sweep. Things rarely went wrong on the Actium, not with Lycia and Astyanax behind the gear. They kept the ship in tip-top shape, constantly monitoring the energy levels and making sure that the shift into FTL speeds didn't overload any of the systems.

She paused, halfway done with what should have been a cursory inspection, as a stray reflection caught her eye. She leaned in closer to the tangle of wires and metal splices, trying to see what it was that caught her. She paused at a pair of dull couplings, older than the other pieces mixed in. She reached out, running her thumb over the metal as she investigated. She felt a bump of some sort, and frowned.

"What the?" She murmured, leaning closer. Her breath caught as she spotted two thin lines in the side. It only took a moment for her to realize those were no mere lines – they were cracks.

"Lycia, we have a problem over here!" She called anxiously, running her fingers over the thin cracks. She swallowed and quickly checked the surrounding area, looking for anything that could have caused the fracture.

"What's wrong?" Lycia asked as she stepped up beside her. Clara motioned silently to the cracks. The turian cursed under her breath. "Those are the FBA couplings," she said as she took the links from her hand. Clara recognized the name, their purpose, and her stomach bottoming out as her mind provided her with the image of Tali, vaporized on their way through the Omega 4 Relay.

"What do you need me to do?" she asked as Lycia murmured under her breath, pushing around the surrounding parts, looking for anything that could have punctured the metal.

"Grab the spare set from storage," she ordered, "Quickly, please." Clara didn't wait a moment longer than necessary, speeding from the room. She dug her way through the boxes, cursing under her breath. This would be just her luck – thrown into an alternate universe and she can't even live long enough to see Commander Shepard in person. She was going to get vaporized before she could cure Tito, before she could kick Cerberus where it hurt.

She was over reacting, she knew this. Their couplings had survived the jump through the relays, survived the repetitive firing of the GUARDIAN cannons and the draw of the shields, they would certainly survive the few moments it took her to dig out the spares and replace them. She also knew that the _Normandy SR-2_ had flown quite fine without them, up until the relay. The few minutes it would take to replace the set they had weren't going to sink the ship.

"Yes!" She hissed out in success as she finally found the missing parts, making her way back into the room just in time to grab the old set from Lycia and pass along the shiny new couplings. She waited as Lycia installed the new set. Seconds passed by like syrup dripping from a spoon, and each moment without made her stomach squirm anxiously.

"There we go," Lycia said, pulling free from the device and taking a look at the ruined couplings, only then taking the time to really inspect the cause of their issues. "You've got good eyes, Clara. Now, the real question: can you see what went wrong?"

She lifted the couplings, tracing her finger over the fractures. "They must've been dropped or jostled just the wrong way. Maybe one of the pieces back there worked their way free and slammed into them when we hit the relay," She offered her a wry smile. "Good thing you keep spare parts around."

"When you travel with a spectre you usually don't have the luxury of time," Lycia told her solemnly. "We keep a few spares around for situations like this. We'll pick up another set when we hit port."

The moment after she finished talking her hand was at the comm. and she was buzzing Nihlus. He answered, though he sounded less than happy to hear from her.

"We need to pick up some spare FBA couplings when we hit port," Lycia said, unfazed as ever. "Clara noticed some hairline fractures in the last set, they almost didn't make it through the relay."

_"I'll add it to the list,"_ Nihlus responded, and for the first time Clara heard something other than agitation in his tone – he sounded exhausted. _"We should be near port in about 18 hours. Anything else down there that needs updating?"_

"No, sir, that's it."

The connection cut off and Lycia rolled her eyes. Of all the people on deck, Clara had noticed Lycia was the only one who seemed honestly amused by Nihlus' stick-up-the-ass personality. Maybe she spent so much time with him she got used to it, or maybe she was honestly just that nice, but Clara didn't know how she did it either way.

"How do you deal with him?" Clara asked, honestly curious.

"What do you mean?" Lycia asked as she led her back into the main room, eyes automatically falling on the energy levels. "He's the commanding officer, everyone has to deal with him."

"No, I mean, how do you deal with his personality?" Clara clarified. "He's not exactly sunshine and roses. He acts like someone pissed in his coffee."

She realized a moment later, as Lycia continued looking at her with a confused stare, that her idioms were probably the least-appropriate way to talk to any alien race, especially when their main method of communication was through translators. Clara sighed, "I mean. He doesn't have the most personable personality."

The turian shrugged, running her palm over the back of her head. "I mean, I've been on the _Actium_ since Nihlus was first inducted into the Spectres. I remember when he went on his first mission for the Council. So, yeah, he's changed, but I know he's still doing what he came here to do. He's making a difference. He's fighting for something, which is more than what a lot of people do."

"Isn't he one of the Council's most decorated agents or something prestigious like that?" Clara asked curiously, leaning against the wall.

"No one else really comes close, except Saren," Lycia agreed, mirroring Clara's casual posture. "He's never gone longer than a week without going on some sort of mission for the Council. This strike against Cerberus is his longest battle yet."

There was something in Lycia's face when she said that, something that made Clara pause. She eyed the turian carefully, her brow wrinkling slightly as she tried to figure out what it is. "Do you think he can do it?" she asked, pushing her hair back from her face.

"What do you mean?" Lycia asked. Clara shrugged.

"I mean, do you think he can take down Cerberus?" she clarified, shrugging again as she tried to word what she wanted to say. "I mean. Cerberus is huge. They've got their fingers in so many pies I'm amazed it isn't coming out of their numerous ears. They're like, kind of untouchable. I mean, he's been working his ass off for months trying to find intel, any sort of information about who and where they are, and I'm the closest thing to a lead he has. He can smack down sector after sector, but they always come back. Do you think we can beat something like that? Something that just grows back its hand after you cut it off?"

Lycia, for once, wasn't all smiles and sunshine. It was the thing that Clara liked about the turian, how she always managed to smile and just push all the negative emotions aside to pave way for the good. This wasn't that Lycia though – she looked worried. It almost made her regret saying anything at all.

"Just because it's going to hard doesn't mean it isn't something worth doing," she murmured. "Nihlus is doing a good thing here. The Alliance isn't dealing with their mess, the salarians don't really care as long as Cerberus keeps its nose away from the STG, and the asari are so busy keeping their noses out of it that they just…stop caring about everything that isn't political stability. The Hierarchy seems to be the only group that cares about bringing them down. Yeah, we're following the Council's orders, but it's Spartatus that's really pulling the strings behind the whole investigation. We're the only people out here actively tracking them down, actively trying to stop them before they go too far. We may not be able to end them, and maybe they will bounce right back, but at least we're doing the right thing."

Clara was struck silent for a long moment, watching as Lycia turned to her numbers and started running through calibrations. She wasn't sure what to say – she wasn't even sure what she was hoping to accomplish with this whole conversation. She wasn't sure of a lot of things, any more.

"I don't want you getting the wrong idea," she said, making Lycia's hand pause. "I want to be here. And I want this to work out – I _need_ this to work out. I just." She sighed heavily, pulling her hair from it's band to run her hand through it. There was no easy way to word what she was going through.

She knew Cerberus was going to fall – or, she at least knew that the Illusive Man would wind up on the wrong side of Commander Shepard's pistol. She knew that Cerberus was going to escape the Reaper War in little more than ruins. But that was almost a decade from now. In that world, Nihlus never lived to see his mission come true; she wasn't even sure he would now.

"How much is enough?" She asked. Lycia looked at her for a long moment, hands hovering over her calibrations.

"I'm in this fight until the end," she finally said, mandibles tense against her face. "There is nothing else. I'll fight with Nihlus until the end, his or mine."

Clara had the horrible, gut wrenching feeling that that was how things were going to happen. She just wished she had the power to change that.

...

A/N: Yay more character insight! I'm trying not to have Clara dwell on the Tito thing, but, that is her motivating factor. That's what's getting her forward. Her only thing keeping her going is the idea that Aetius is going to be okay, that she can save him. And maybe she has a savior complex. She probably also has a bit of a god complex, though that remains to be seen.

But seriously. She has the power to change the universe. How would that NOT give someone a god complex?

Anyway. Hope you enjoyed - we're almost to the end of Act I!

Lots of Love;

B.E. Nomads


	8. Act 1, Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

Clara took deep breaths as she stared at the monitor, running her fingers through her hair as she tried to prepare herself for…whatever it was she was going to see. There had been talks about doing this, about setting up a link and actually seeing them, hearing them, but now that she was sitting here waiting to make the call she was completely and totally panicked.

The decision was made for her when the computer registered an incoming call, the sharp trill making her jump. Meriones glanced at her from her bunk and chuckled before returning her attentions back to her data pad. Clara pressed the green answer button, and waited.

An instant later, Aelia's face appeared on the screen, the white walls of the hospital behind her. She smiled a wide, turian grin. "Hey, Clara. Glad to see you finally got some time off."

"Not a lot, but, enough," she responded, trying to return the gesture and failing slightly. "Iovita said in her messages that he was doing better?"

Aelia shrugged, scratching at her neck. "I mean, he's doing the same. They've kept his vitals going, they're all stable and everything. There isn't really much we can do without a cure."

That pressure that had been lurking on Clara's shoulders ever since she stepped onto the _Actium_ came back full force, weighing her down almost as if it were a physical force. She tried to put it aside, focus on the call at hand, but all she could really think about was Cerberus. It was always Cerberus.

"How are you doing?" Clara pushed, giving her friend a cursory once over. She couldn't tell, not through the video, but she looked about the same.

"I'm doing well. As well as I can be," she responded with a rough laugh. "My brother is stuck in a coma until we find some mystery cure. Mom and Dad left me in your apartment while they headed back home to deal with business there. Hope you don't mind."

"No, not at all, just stay as long as you have to, as long as you want," Clara interjected. "Tito needs someone there. I would be, but…"

She trailed off awkwardly, not certain how she was supposed to explain where she was and what she was doing. Aelia hadn't asked – none of them had – but it was obvious they wanted to know what was more important than staying and making sure Tito was alive. Making sure he stayed alive. She wanted to just blurt it all out, tell them that she was hunting down the people who had done this, but that wasn't really an option. That came with too many strings, too many explanations that would run dry. Not everyone would believe her, and just because Tito had didn't mean his parents would.

"Look, I, ah, have some work to finish up," Clara finally said, rubbing her ear awkwardly. "I'll call again when I have some time, but, until then keep him company for me, yeah? Let him know I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Right. Well. I'll talk to you later. Mom'll keep sending you the updates."

"Later."

Clara closed down the link before anything more could be said, her heart in her throat while guilt niggled at her stomach. She pushed the computer aside before climbing up on her bunk, more than prepared to just lay there and pass out. She could feel Meriones' eyes on her, but she pushed the sensation aside in favor of getting comfortable.

Six weeks since she left, and this was the first time she'd called in. Why hadn't she just stayed on a little longer? Why hadn't she just sucked it up and talked with the poor girl, who was now alone on the Citadel, her only family either in the hospital unconscious or on Palaven however many light years away?

As she rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, she knew what the real answer was. She was afraid. She was so horribly afraid. And now she was here, trying to save Tito and in the mean time taking steps to save the world. She hadn't had much time that wasn't spent training with Nihlus or Creion, whoever was available that day, or getting tech lessons from Lycia and Astyanax. What spare time she did have was spent thinking; a dangerous hobby indeed, and for once she didn't mean that as a joke.

What would happen if Nihlus succeeded in taking out Cerberus, in hitting them so hard that they weren't even a player in Mass Effect? The first answer was obvious: Shepard would never get revived and would wind up dying permanently out in space. That wasn't allowed, because no matter what Clara managed to change about this universe she honestly believed that only Shepard could save it. She was their only hope.

So, there came the line, the question she wasn't sure she wanted to answer: save Tito, or save the world.

Maybe things weren't as black and white as that, maybe there was some middle road she could take to make things work out happily ever after for everyone. Maybe she could work everything just so, play between the rules. She could use Nihlus to get the cure, point him in the right direction, but simultaneously keep off course just enough so Cerberus still had enough power to bring Shepard back to life.

She pressed her hands against her eyes, as if that could rub away the impending headache. She couldn't do that, she couldn't sabotage these people who dedicated so much of their life and their time to taking down an institution that was honestly wretched.

These thoughts assaulted Clara's mind hours into the night cycle, and it seemed no matter what she did and no matter how many angles she looked at it, things were still as confusing as they were the first damn day she found herself on the Citadel.

...

"Suit up, Johnson, you're on the drop team."

Clara sat up, cursing as her head slammed against the underside of the console she was busy rewiring. There was a muffled snicker from Astyanax as she rubbed the injured area, pushing herself up to face Nihlus. "Sir?" She asked.

"We've been contacted by the Hierarchy for an undercover mission, which will take advantage of your specific skill set," Nihlus barked, keen eyes on her as she stood. "We're infiltrating a Blue Sun's base to recover intelligence regarding the positions of several turian carrier vessels."

"I'm not sure I understand how I will be an asset to the mission, sir," she said slowly.

"Your training has progressed nicely," he countered, and it looked as if saying those words physically hurt him. "Creion and I both agree that this will be a good trial run. If you survive, you will be put on the roster for regular drop missions."

Clara's heart took off as the information sank in, and she was suddenly and very keenly aware that if she didn't live up to the expectations her trainers had, it was very likely she would wind up severely injured. Or worse. She swallowed down her complaints and nodded. This was her chance to prove herself – if she refused to go, she was disobeying a direct order and admitting that she wasn't worth the spectres time. If she accepted, she had the potential to prove that everything she promised him was right, and to prove that she could be a valuable asset to this crew (and later, to the _Normandy_, if things progressed as she planned).

"I'll be ready in five," she said.

"Good, we drop in ten. Move out."

Nihlus turned and exited the engineering deck. Clara hesitated only a moment before scampering away, stopping by her room to pull on her under armour. She jogged downstairs to the armory – a fancy name given to the back corner of the cargo hold. Among the various sets of turian armors sat one lone human set. She had only approached the armory a few times, and each time was spent choosing the weapons best suited for her style and making sure her shields were as strong as she could possibly manage without diverting too dramatically from her medigel despisers. It had taken some advice from Astyanax but eventually she had reached an arrangement she was satisfied with.

Her armor was blue, though. That wasn't something she had decided upon. Meriones stepped up, already decked out in head to toe armor, and noticed her curious look. "It's a Blue Suns base," she explained. "We had to detail your armor."

She blushed, nodding, and dammit why hadn't she thought of that. She didn't waste any more time, pulling on her armor and latching everything into place. She had gone over the procedure several times, until the configuration was burned into her mind. She was fairly certain she could have applied her armor in her sleep, but that didn't stop her from murmuring the steps under her breath as she went. She saved her helmet for when they got in the shuttle.

She watched as Creion and Boreas stepped into the hold, decked out in matching blue and white armor. Creion looked most off-put by the change in designs, but Boreas just looked…bored.

It took a certain kind of person to scare Clara, and Boreas made her feel like a little kid staring up at a homicidal clown. She thanked God he was on their side.

"The plan is simple," Nihlus barked, making her lurch slightly in surprise. She faced him regardless, praying that even if one of them saw her they would refrain from mentioning it. "The Blue Suns base is heavily guarded, but Palaven command gave us an in: in 10 minutes the guard will shift, giving us a minute to sneak in through one of the side entrances and begin infiltration. Do not engage enemies until extraction is complete or identities are compromised. Understood?"

After a quick nod of agreement, Nihlus fixed his attention on her. Clara's stomach twisted and she steadfastly ignored the nervous twitching of her eye. If Nihlus noticed the subtle fluctuations, he said nothing. "Johnson, you're in charge of retrieving the information and ensuring its safe return to the ship. No matter what happens you get to the shuttle and return the information. Leave the heroics to someone else."

"Sir," she agreed, slightly begrudgingly. She didn't think she had what it took to keep running to base when one of her squad was down for the count.

"Boreas, keep Johnson covered," he ordered. "If her shields are down I want you there with a barrier. Understood?"

The biotic nodded. Clara wondered if he ever spoke.

"Meriones, Creion, standard procedure. If I abandon formation, Creion is left in charge of formation," Nihlus finished. "Any questions?"

There was a moment of silence, which was all Nihlus needed. He nodded them towards the shuttle. Clara was the last to the shuttle, but when she made to embark Nihlus clasped his hand on her shoulder and pulled her back. His voice was soft in her ear.

"I don't want any mistakes, Clara," he murmured. "Creion swears up and down that you will hold your own. If you fail, it's his ass on the line."

...

There was nothing Clara loved more than being able to someone wrong; some may have called that her "tragic flaw", her equivalent to the standard Greek hubris. She figured with Nihlus on board the _Actium's_ crew had more than its fair share of pride, and so her flaw was channeled into something else.

When Clara was young, her aunt had told her exactly how her life was going to go: she was going to go to school, graduate, find a good man, marry him, pop out a few kids, and die surrounded by a huge family. A nice picture, if you were interested in that sort of thing. Clara only deigned to give her the first two. Instead of entering a stable, loving relationship Clara had entertained an arrangement with a fellow undergrad who she found relatively pleasing to the eye. They dated on and off for years, both knowing that the relationship was little more than a standard "friends with benefits" scenario. Instead of getting married, she got a dog, and instead of having kids she helped create various Virtual Intelligence's for various government projects.

It seemed that, if her luck was going as far south as it usually did, today she would be denying her aunt her final wish. Getting shot down in an intelligence mission was not in any of the cards her aunt had laid out for her.

"Fuck, they've got a gunship!" Meriones yelled. "Duck for cover, go go go!"

The initial infiltration had gone smoothly – they approached the drop point, Ajax letting them off about 20 klicks from their entryway, and made it to the door just in time for the guard rotation. The men watching the door moved, and the team slid into place. No alarms went off, no sirens, no screaming men demanding for identification: just silence.

Nihlus abandoned the group roughly 10 minutes after initial contact, as expected, and Creion stepped up as temporary squad leader. He was good, effective, and managed to get them to the information terminal right on schedule. Clara stepped up, walking as if she were supposed to be here, and started the arduous process of hacking the terminal open and downloading the information onto this handy dandy OSD.

That was when things started to get tricky.

Clara ducked into cover, cursing up a storm as a barrage of fire hit her shields, taking them down to 40% capacity. She closed her eyes, breathing in deep through her nose and waiting for a lull in fire, letting her shields recharge. She loaded her sniper rifle, and the moment the fire stopped she flipped out of cover, stumbling slightly as she zeroed in on the ship, taking as much time as she dared to get a clean shot.

The information had just completed download when alarms started going off, blaring and yelling about a breach on this side of the complex, and an instant later all weapons were focused on the team. Boreas managed to get them out of the small divot they were stuck in, projecting a powerful biotic shield that made her murmur in awe. Unfortunately, the sheer numbers surrounding them were quick to put a damper on his shield. They barely had time to make it towards a more open and more fire-friendly room before his barrier dropped and they all dove into cover.

Clara had killed three men already. The adrenaline and the knowledge that these men were all mercs more than deserving this end were the only things that kept her from puking. That, and vomit was a sure way to block her vision.

"Meriones, get Clara to the shuttle!" Creion demanded over the crack of her rifle, the shot slamming into the glass of the gunship and slamming into the pilots shoulder. "Go, now! Boreas and I have your backs!"

Meriones followed her orders, snatching Clara up by her shoulder and shoving her towards the momentarily clear entrance. Clara didn't need telling twice – she ran, abandoning the rifle behind her, Meriones easily keeping stride with her smaller legs. Slugs nicked at their shields and anxiety kept her eyes glued to their strength.

60%.

The door began sliding closed and Clara's heart lodged itself in her throat. The duo cleared the metal barricade with ease, and she dared turning to see if her fellow crew mates succeeded in clearing the blockade.

50%.

She stumbled slightly, but allowed a smile as Boreas sent a warp at the heavy metal and bent it out of shape, keeping it from closing. The soldier and the adept slid through the gap, chasing after the two. The barrage of decidedly unfriendly fire began anew, coming at them from both sides while their fronts remained mercifully empty.

30%.

"Go go go go!" She screamed, her throat raw as her legs burned and the shuttle finally – finally! – came into view.

20%.

A human sent a biotic wave her way, and in her scramble to avoid the hit she tumbled to the ground, rolling to a stop. A red-plated hand snaked out and grabbed her arm, hauling her to her feet and dragging her with him into cover behind a fragile crate. The break in fire was enough to give her shields a little time to recover, but she knew their cover wouldn't last.

"We run on three," Nihlus ordered, and where he had come from she had no fuckin' idea but she had never been more thankful to see the bastard than she was right then.

"Three!" he yelled without preamble, completely skipping one and two as he grabbed Clara's arm and began dragging her towards safety. The rest of the squad was ahead of them now, safe in the tree line and just waiting for their final two party members. The slugs were never ending as Blue Sun's closed in on them from behind.

10%.

"My shields aren't going to make it!" Clara screamed. If Nihlus heard her, he ignored it and just prompted her to run faster. Her calves were burning, and suddenly she was incredibly thankful for the regular laps around the Presidium. The shuttle was in sight, so close, Meriones standing in the door and waiting to pull them in to safety.

0%.

Shot after shot slammed into her armor, feeling like God himself were punching her over and over as punishment for making stupid-ass decisions, like _getting her ass trapped in a video game_.

10 feet away and suddenly her shoulder felt like it was on fire. She cried out, a litany of curses filling the air. A round had slammed into her shoulder, punching through the protective casing and lodging itself stubbornly in her flesh. She gritted her teeth, tears leaking from her eyes.

An instant later Meriones was pulling her into the shuttle, Nihlus elegantly hopping in beside her.

"Get us out of here, Ajax!" the spectre demanded. The shuttle roared to attention, speeding off and homing in on the awaiting _Actium_.

"Let me see your shoulder," Creion ordered, pressing his hand to her unwounded side as he inspected the hole. He grimaced slightly, or at least offered the turian equivalent. "We're going to have to get her to Hierax. There's no exit wound."

Moments after the shuttle docked Meriones was guiding her to the med bay, helping her up onto the bed while Peleus puttered around, preparing for surgery. Clara felt as if she were going to be ill.

"First mission and I'm already in the med bay," she managed to quip, mostly for her own sake. "I make one hell of a squad mate."

"Hierax will get you fixed up in no time," Meriones informed her with a proud pat on her uninjured shoulder. "Be lucky we have some levo sedatives on board, otherwise you would be in for one hell of a painful extraction."

Clara whimpered. Peleus seemed to take pity on her, stepping up and shooing Meriones from the room. He helped her out of her armor, mandibles set sympathetically as every move jarred her shoulder. He was pulling away at her under armor when Clara realized that the OSD holding all the information they had worked to recover was still clasped tightly in her hand.

...

Surgery was something that Clara never wanted to experience again. Unfortunately, she knew that she would find her way to the med bay several times over throughout the course of her stay on the _Actium_. Maybe, if she was lucky, they would just be simple bullet extractions and broken bones. Anything worse and she may not come out on the other side in one piece.

"Did we get the right information?" Clara murmured as she woke from her medical-induced sleep. Sorthem was the one there this time, strange salarian eyes blinking rapidly at her.

"Yes, Kryik seemed very pleased with the result," he agreed before holding up a dish. "Would you like to see the slug that hit you?"

Her gut instinct was to say 'hell no' as vehemently as possible, but curiosity got the best of her. She carefully pushed herself up onto her elbows and looked down at the bit of metal.

"Huh. Not as scary looking as I thought it would be," she admitted.

"You should keep it," Sorthem recommended. "Humanity is inclined to keeping inanimate objects as pet, yes?"

Clara looked at him slowly, wondering if he was joking. The answer never came to her – Nihlus strolled through the door, his face situated in a begrudgingly pleased expression.

"Was the information useful?" she asked, before he had the chance to speak. He nodded shortly.

"Yes. While you and your squad gathered the information the Hierarchy needed, I managed to find our first major lead on Cerberus. Two birds with one stone, I believe the saying goes."

Clara barely heard the end of his sentence, focused instead on the giant 'c' word that suddenly made everything else he said completely and utterly inconsequential. "Cerberus?" she asked.

He nodded. "We've got the shipping logs regarding some experimental technology the organization shared with the Blue Suns at that specific location. Hopefully, the logs should be able to lead us to the outpost they originated from."

She struggled to respond, her mind racing away with the implications of his words. "So, what, is this a major outpost or just one of their side projects?" She asked eagerly.

The look Nihlus fixed her with could be best described as: 'Seriously?'. "There is no feasible way that Cerberus would leave any casual trace back to a significant resource," he said slowly, feeding the words to her as if she'd hit her head – and maybe she had. "The information likely just leads to another independent sector, working on their own budget and own sources. They're likely just supported by Cerberus, nothing more, nothing less."

"So what good is that?" she snapped, pursing her lips together. "So we know how to stop Cerberus from selling illegal goods to the Blue Suns, that's great, but how the hell are we going to hit them where it hurts?"

"You're not seeing the big picture here, Clara!" Nihlus scolded. He began pacing as he dove into his explanation. "If we take out this sector, we have access to all their files. We've already got a leg up on them – they have no idea we're coming. If we plan, learn the layout and use it to our advantage, we can not only salvage any information they have on tap but we can use it to trace them to another sector. We could take out Cerberus, one well-aimed strike at a time. This is the biggest break we've had yet."

Clara didn't want to be the one to burst his bubble, but Sorthem seemed content staying out of it. She shook her head. "Look, this is great information, and we did a lot of good today, but – I mean, God, this one branch isn't the answer to all our problems. Cerberus is a complicated web of connections and sectors and outposts that don't even know what each other are doing: all that matters is their goal and their research. Even if we do take them out, at least three other outposts are going to take its place. It's like fighting a hydra: no matter how many heads you cut off they just keep coming back."

Nihlus bristled, his mandibles fluttering so quickly she almost didn't notice them move. She could only imagine what his subharmonics sounded like. "This is the best lead we have, and while it is a small move, just taking out one outpost is more than we've ever managed to accomplish. This is going to take time, and if we have to mow down fifty outposts then we will."

"I just don't think-"

"You aren't here to think!" Nihlus snapped, shocking her to silence. "You're here to help. If you don't want to take down Cerberus we can drop you off at the Citadel tomorrow. Am I understood?"

Clara looked at him for a long moment, and if she was honest a large part of her was yelling at him, begging her to take her chance – and her life – and return to safety. But then she thought of Tito, thought of all the good she could do finding this one cure, and she submitted.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. "I need to rest."

Nihlus nodded sharply, "Sleep. I need you in top shape as soon as possible – Cerberus is coming down. We can't take them out without you."

He turned to walk away, and Clara wondered how much he believed his own words.

...

A/N: Hey! Next chapter is a woozy - it's the end of Act One! So, expect a good 5,000 words. A lot happens, and we even have a special guest cameo! I hope you're as excited about it as I am. Chapter 9 is a huge turning point for Clara, or at least the first step, and I hope I do it justice.

And yes, Nihlus is still a jerk. That's going to change though! I promise you. I mean, he's still gonna be a jerk, that's just kind of...him. But he isn't going to be as assholish. He'll cut Clara some slack after all she does...

Lots of Love;

B.E. Nomads


	9. Act 1, Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine:**

Nihlus spent three days going over the information salvaged from the Blue Suns outpost; three days, locked away in his quarters, doing nothing but researching and planning. Even Boreas looked disconcerted by his sudden shut-in. As for Clara, she was just grateful for the lull in training. And for advanced medical technology. She was discharged after 2 and a half days, under the promise that she not strain herself. Her shoulder kept her from performing any heavy tasks, but Lycia didn't let that stop her from running Clara ragged mentally. She was even doing calibrations in her sleep.

(A curious part of her wondered if Garrus suffered the same issues with the Thanix canons. She made note to ask him when she got the chance.)

When Clara finally saw Nihlus again he looked defeated, but determined. He stopped by her console and though Clara had already turned to face him, he made no move to speak. She waited a moment, before hesitantly asking: "Nihlus?"

He met her gaze, as if he only just realized she were there. He nodded. "Clara. I have an assignment for you."

Clara hesitated. "Sir?"

"I need you to infiltrate the Cerberus outpost," He said sharply. "On your own."

To her surprise, it was Lycia who spoke next, jumping into the conversation even though Clara hadn't even known she was listening in. "You can't send her on her own!" She protested. "Her shoulder is still healing, she even tries to fire a weapon and she'll tear it open again. Clara did well last drop – excellent, really – but she hasn't had enough practice. You're going to get her killed."

"I'm aware of the risks," Nihlus responded, and for a moment he sounded much older than he really was. He sounded tired. "We have no other choice. Cerberus security is too air-tight. Clara is the only one on the ship that can walk around unnoticed."

Lycia looked as if she wanted to argue, but Clara stepped in: "What do you need me to do?" she demanded.

The engineer stiffened, looked as if she wanted to protest further, but Astyanax's hand on her shoulder pulled her back. Nihlus hesitated again before explaining. "All we need you to do is get onto the ship and scramble their shields and weapons systems. It will give us the chance to land the shuttle, get in, and start the sweep for information. While the information is downloading, Meriones and Creion will leave formation to offer you fire support and return you to the shuttle. We reconvene there and escape back to the _Actium_."

The plan sounded solid, but she didn't like it. There were a thousand ways this could go wrong. One mistake could kill the whole squad. But the prevalent thought in her mind was Tito. This could be the outpost, the people who knew the cure, the thing she needed above all else. She couldn't let the chance go, even as slim as it was.

Nihlus seemed to take her silence as hesitance. He elaborated, looking for once like the turian who cared about his crew and not the ass who had made her cry all those months ago. "This is asking a lot – there is a chance that you wont come back. But any other plan risks no one coming back."

"I'll do it," she interrupted, before he could continue. "As long as you promise to get what Tito needs. That's what matters."

Nihlus gave a short nod. "We are 12 hours from the station. Get some rest and prepare for the drop. Lycia will calibrate your omni-tool and Creion will outfit you appropriately."

He was gone before she could respond, the affirmative caught in her throat. She looked at her mentor, looking for what she didn't know, but Lycia kept her eyes stubbornly on her console.

…

12 hours had never passed so quickly before. She used her time well. A quick nap turned into a deep sleep that left her feeling alert and aware. Before stopping by engineering or the armory, she headed to the med bay. As expected, Peleus was sitting behind his desk, eyes intent on his screen.

"Peleus?" She asked. He looked up at her.

"Is something wrong?" he asked, looking at her shoulder pointedly. She shook her head.

"No, no, I'm fine. I'm just hoping you could look at my shoulder, make sure it's okay for the drop," she asked.

"For the suicide mission, you mean," he countered, and though his tone completely disapproved of her actions, he stood and motioned her further in. She stepped in, pulling off her shirt as she leaned against the bed. He looked over her shoulder, fingers tenderly pressing against the bruised and broken flesh. She was quiet, not sure that there was anything left to say.

"You do realize that this mission could kill you." Peleus stated. Though it was intended as a question, something to reassure himself that she was aware of the risks, they both knew the answer already.

Clara offered a wry smile. "Is that your professional opinion?" She asked.

"It's a common sense opinion," he retorted. "You've been training on ship for only 6 weeks now. No one becomes an infiltrator in that time – especially not one capable enough to infiltrate Cerberus."

It wasn't an insult – it was a fact. Clara didn't let it bother her. "I'm the only person on ship who can walk into the outpost without people shooting me on sight. I have no other choice."

"You know just as well as I that Nihlus can think of another plan," he said, stepping back. "Your shoulder is healing as expected. Not enough for me to recommend you go on the mission, but we both know you aren't going to listen to me."

She pulled on her shirt as she said, "Every other option leaves us vulnerable. We need information – we could blow the outpost sky high if we really wanted, but then we lose our leads. I'm the only human on ship. It has to be me."

Peleus watched her with his strange, blue-white eyes. She ran her fingers through her hair, so much longer than she'd ever worn it before, and pressed her palms to her eyes in an attempt to wipe away the stress.

"How much longer till we reach the outpost?" She asked, letting her hands fall to her sides as she looked up at him.

"Approximately 3 hours," he responded. "Lycia is waiting for you in engineering. She isn't happy with you."

She sighed and straightened, murmuring a thanks as she escaped from his damn stare. If anyone on this ship made her feel like an idiot, it was Peleus. Normally she didn't mind, but today…she knew he was right. It just made it all so much worse. As she made to enter engineering, the young soldier Atrides was making his way out. "Whoa, you aren't planning on going in there, are you?"

"I don't really have another choice," Clara sighed, scratching the back of her neck. "I'm on the mission. We're updating my omni-tool."

Atrides fixed her with a decidedly sympathetic look. "I almost feel sorry for you. Lycia looks like she'll snap your plates in half." He paused awkwardly, "Uh, not that you have plates. Your...skin?"

"I think you mean bones," she said dryly. "You don't know much about humans, do you?"

He shook his head. "No, no. Never really met one before you, actually. At least, not one that wasn't trying to kill me. I'm surprised your species managed to survive the Relay 314 event. You're so...soft."

Clara rolled her eyes, "Not as much as you turians like to think. Anyway. I've gotta go harass Lycia. You may want to get out of blast-radius."

Atrides laughed shakily, rubbing his hand over his fringe. "Right, right. Have fun in there."

"I wont," she retorted as he walked away. She sighed and braced herself anew for whatever awaited her through the door.

Lycia was waiting for her by her usual console, hip pressed to the side and arms crossed over her chest. She looked pissed, but it was clear she didn't want to talk about it. She held out her hand, palm up, waiting. Clara offered the woman her omni-tool. There was a long minute of quiet as Lycia worked on the omni-tool, upgrading her hacking program and making sure that everything functioned at peak-efficiency. Clara thought Lycia wasn't going to say anything at all.

"I don't want you doing this stupid mission," the engineer snapped, pushing the updated omni-tool back into Clara's arms. "You're going to get yourself hurt."

"Meriones and Creion will have my back," she said blithely, sliding the hardware back on her wrist and clicking it into place.

Lycia's voice was sharp, as she snapped at her. "No, they wont. Not until hell already breaks loose. You're going into the fire and expecting not to burn."

"If I was religious I would give you a sermon about walking into fire and not burning," Clara retorted. "But I never listened in Sunday school."

Lycia's mandibles fluttered angrily, and even she could hear the low growl of irritation that reverberated in her throat. "Go see Creion. Maybe he can keep your ass alive."

Clara didn't need telling twice – Lycia had never been this upset before, had never outright snapped at her. Hell, she never snapped at anyone – she was like the mother on board, kind and nice and caring and always there. Except for now, it seemed.

_Or especially_, her mind whispered, and guilt began to gnaw at her gut. It was too late to turn back, though. She was already standing in the cargo hold, Creion hovering near the weapons rack. He glanced up when she headed towards him, and he looked…the same as ever. Stoic.

"Nihlus says you're doing an infiltration," he said. "You're gonna need some new weapons. Let me see your omni-tool."

She obliged, pulling off the device and passing it to him. "Lycia just updated it," she said.

"I'm adding an incinerate," he explained. She watched curiously as he toyed with her omni-tool, hands more steady than she had anticipated. She should have known better – he was the resident weapons expert, bar Nihlus, and she knew that required its own kind of precision. He handed the hardware back. "You can activate it here. It has an 8 second recharge time, so be careful."

"Thank you," she said. He didn't respond, instead just pulling some other weapons from the shelf. Her stomach twisted. She didn't really know weapons, not as well as she should have, but she remembered these from Creion's initial lessons. "The HMWP?" She asked.

"Nihlus requested you have the best weapons available for this specific mission, considering you're going to be on your own for a good portion of the fight until we can get you backup" he explained. "You'll get off about 29 shots before it overheats. You're also going to need this."

He pulled out the HMWSR and her heart stuttered again. Creion continued, "You've got two solid shots before overheat. It's modded specifically for stealth – lightweight, compact. You'll barely feel it on your back. From what Nihlus said about the outpost, there are a good handful of military personnel, so you should blend for a little while."

He set the weapons on the bench again, gleaming and ready for action, and then pulled open her locker. Her armor was again repainted, and the hole in the shoulder repaired. "We fixed your armor as best as we could on short notice, but we've also redirected some of your systems to shields. There should be plenty of medigel packets in the station as is. Your shields will last longer than they did with the Blue Suns, but that doesn't mean you should risk exposure. Keep in cover, keep the data safe, and stay alive. No one wants to see you come back dead."

"I don't know, Nestor seems like he'll be fine with that scenario," she quipped, her voice not as light hearted as she had intended.

"Then let me reiterate: I don't want to see you come back dead. And neither does Lycia. We both think this is a suicide run on your part."

Clara sighed, rubbing her temples. "Can we not go over this again? I've made my choice. I'm going."

"If you're going to prove yourself then you're stupid," Creion retorted. "You're new, you're young, and you don't need to run headlong into your death just because Nihlus says to. Nihlus is wrong sometimes. We can do without this information, we can find another lead."

Clara reminded herself that he didn't know what was going on, that he didn't know Aetius was laying dying in a hospital and that she was the only one searching for the cure. He didn't know anything, and he didn't know what this meant. She just kept her mouth shut. After a long moment he sighed, and accepted she wasn't going to change her mind.

"Go eat," he demanded. "Nihlus wants to go over the plan one more time before we drop."

…

The moment Clara stepped from the shuttle and onto the station, she felt as if she had walked into hell itself. People were around, all dressed in the same white and orange ensemble, and here she was: parading around as if she were one of them. The door to the shuttle slid shut behind her and Ajax took off, returning to the distant _Actium_ to prepare for the second landing. Clara used a moment to steady her breath, masking her worry with a very casual check of her messages, before steadying herself and stepping forward.

No one looked at her. No one noticed her. She was just another face in the crowd.

She stepped into the restroom, escaping view of any unwanted eyes, and activated her tactical cloak. She had 30 seconds.

She darted from the room, keeping her steps light as she stepped up to the security checkpoint. She kneeled by the console, deft fingers sliding over the screen before she jimmied her omni-tool into place. 10 seconds.

There was a small ding, indicating her success, and an instant later the weapons scanners and ID station shut down. She used the last five seconds of her cloak to dart through the procession, avoiding security and coming out on the other side. She barely had time to hide behind a pillar before the cloak shut off and she reappeared. She calmed her breathing, forcing herself to mellow as she stepped into sight and made her way through the station.

Her comm. crackled and Nihlus' voice piped into her ear: _"Did you plant the bug?"_

Her lips barely moved as she responded, "Just placed it. The layout should start downloading in a few seconds."

There was a pause, and an instant later her omni-tool beeped and alerted her of the new message: From Lycia. She opened it, smiling slightly when the layout for the station filtered through.

"_We got it on our end,"_ Nihlus said.

"Same," she agreed, "I'm heading to the terminal now."

Nihlus never responded as she followed the path laid out to her by the ships VI, with the aid of Lycia. She was glad that, even as upset as Lycia was with her, she was still willing to help.

No one noticed her – or at least, no one noticed she didn't belong there. She walked through the crowds, blending in with the herd and keeping her senses on high alert. Things were going well, too well, and she could feel her nerves boiling under the surface.

"_You're heart rate spiked, what's going on down there?_" Nihlus asked, his voice sharp.

"Well, I'm walking around one of the homes of the people who tried to kill my boyfriend, I'm feeling a little tense," She hissed out.

He offered no apology and she didn't ask for one – she just had a few more meters to go, just a few more hallways until she was at the information hub and then all she had to do was download the information, wait for the distraction, and escape. That was it. Just a little more.

"I've reached the hub," she murmured, stepping into a large cavern of a room, lined with computers and only a smattering of personnel. She could see the door – the room that held the head of this sectors information. Their computer would hold everything. It was a veritable gold-mine.

In front of the door was a span of empty space – no cover, no way to hide.

"_We'll dock in 30 seconds_," Nihlus told her. "_Wait for the alarms_."

She held her breath, her heart hammering away anxiously in her chest as she counted down. It was quite possibly the longest 30 seconds of her life before finally, alarms rang. The few soldiers that were in the room straightened and ran, heading to their posts. She activated her cloak and dashed across the room, the countdown ringing in her head, and five seconds to spare found her hacking the door open. It closed behind her, just as the cloak vanished, and the man behind the desk spun around to see who dared to interrupt him. Her pistol put a bullet in his throat before he could open his mouth. She winced – she'd aimed for his head, to make it quick and clean.

"Sorry," she murmured, her stomach churning as she pushed his chair aside and hunkered down at the desk. "Okay, I'm at the terminal, hacking the information now. How long until you reach me?"

There was a moments hesitation before Nihlus responded. _"Creion and Meriones are carving a path your way as we speak."_

The thought of the team splitting up made her stomach clench awkwardly. Nihlus could protect himself (from everyone except Saren, it seemed) and she knew, in her gut, that he would get through in one piece. He had to, and he wasn't alone - he had Atrides and Boreas at his side. But Creion and Meriones…

She kept her eyes focused on only two things – the information download, and the door. She hadn't locked it behind her, hadn't had the time, and now she was worried someone would come through and-

There was a soft whirr, the only warning of the door sliding open, and Clara knew it was too soon for it to be anyone good. She slid from view, hiding behind the desk and listening to the clink of high heels as someone entered the room. She held her breath, getting a glimpse of white and black uniform in the window before she spun around, pistol aimed and firing before she even checked to see who it was.

A biotic barrier flared, deflecting the shot, and Clara felt her stomach bottom out as familiar grey eyes stared back at her.

"Shit," she whispered as she stared into the perfect face of a 29 year old Miranda Lawson. Her outfit was similar to what she saw in the game, the same white and black cat suit that made her figure her most noticeable attribute. It appeared to be of a different texture, however – smooth metal, not quite as malleable.

Clara's mind flashed back to an article she read about armor curving with the shape of a woman chest, something how it would actually lead to more severe injuries if it was hit just the wrong way, and wondered if that lead to her change her outfit. The black and white catsuit from Mass Effect 2 was nicer, either way.

"Look who we have here," Miranda said, her Australian accent exactly the same as she remembered. "Someone's poking their nose where it doesn't belong."

"Well, you stepped on the wrong persons toes," Clara retorted with false bravado as she slowly stood, pistol still aimed at the operatives head. "I don't want to hurt you."

Miranda quirked a brow, amused. "You're injured. You think you can hurt me?"

"_Clara, do not engage!"_ Nihlus snapped in her ear, and Clara realized he could hear her side of the conversation. "_Your back up is near by, just hold off!"_

"I think that if I land just the right shot, your armor will do all the damage for me," she retorted, ignoring Nihlus' voice. Miranda laughed.

"Smart. Unfortunately for you looks can be deceiving. You'd have to get past my shields either way," She leveled her pistol at Clara. "What are you looking for?"

"The Wizard of Oz," she retorted dryly. "I hear this is the place to find him. I hear he's one of a kind."

"Funny," Miranda said, clearly not amused. "I'll ask you again. What do you want?"

Clara swallowed – she had to keep her talking, had to keep her from firing, from realizing that she was in no shape to fight, and god dammit where were Creion and Meriones? Could they even handle themselves against the perfection that was Miranda? She seemed so…impenetrable. So strong.

"I'll tell you what I want," she said, trying to keep her tone level. "What I really really want."

She was silent for a moment, and Miranda narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Yes?" She snapped.

Clara wet her lips, and this time she couldn't help the quirk of her lips as she responded. "I really, really, _really_ want...a zigga zig ah."

There was a long moment of silence, in which Miranda stared at her incredulously, her mouth hanging open only slightly – some may not have noticed it, but considering Clara did know her it was obvious – even if she had seen her just through the eyes of Shepard.

"Did you just quote the Spice Girls at me?" Miranda demanded. Clara was surprised – they still listened to the Spice Girls 160 years in the future? She hadn't expected that.

"What can I say, their lyrics really speak to me," she said. Her levity left her and she said seriously, "I'm not telling you what I want, because you wouldn't understand. Standing here, protecting an organization that kills without thought – takes lives in the name of science. You know nothing of right and wrong."

"So that's what this is?" Miranda cut in, "Some scheme for revenge. We aren't the people the Council wants you to think. We're trying to help humanity."

"Right, and if you kill people in droves it's just part of the mission, part of the greater good," Clara retorted. "The end justifies the means?"

"I don't know where you're getting your information from, but it's wrong," Miranda said shortly. "All we want to do is make a place for humanity. Sometimes that involves stepping on other peoples toes. It's business."

"Sounds like a shitty business."

The operative's face settled into a firm mask of displeasure and her posture firmed. "I can see there will be no civil conversation with you. I was going to offer you a deal, let you leave alive, but it's very clear you aren't going to cooperate. Now, I'm just going to kill you, and just see what you were looking for with my own two eyes."

Clara's heart stopped.

Miranda pulled the trigger.

Clara dove under the desk, the shot clipping her shields, and again she was suddenly and intensely grateful for Nihlus' training. Without that she had no doubt Miranda would have very gladly put a bullet in her brain. Her shoulder smashed into the chair on the way down and even through the armor she felt the stinging pain.

_Don't think about it_, she thought, keeping her eyes glued to Miranda's reflection as she slowly moved around the desk. Clara inched away slowly, mirroring the biotics steps and keeping the lone cover between them. Miranda turned the corner and Clara popped up, firing unrepentantly. Miranda's shield broke under fire, slugs clipping her body but leaving no serious damage. Clara was not so lucky. The fourth shot bypassed her shields and slammed into what was, up until that moment, her good shoulder. Though shot didn't break through the metal of her armor it still sent her stumbling back. She rolled out of the way, and their roles where suddenly reversed. Her back was to the door, and with a sudden curse she realized Miranda was by the computer and the OSD was still downloading away.

She didn't think, she didn't have time. She jumped up, pistol firing shot after unrepentant shot. Miranda gladly retaliated in kind. Five shots, two to break through the biotics shields, one to weaken her barrier, and one to slam into Miranda's perfect bicep. Clara's shields hadn't recharged, lingering on the low end of the spectrum, and she forced herself to soldier on as the bullets left waves of fire in their wake.

Miranda took cover first, and Clara moved forward through the pain. She yanked the OSD from the port, clutching it in her hand as she turned and bolted from the room. Miranda fired after her, shots clipping her armor and sending threatening vibrations through the suit. The door slid shut, buying Clara reprieve from the onslaught. She had no choice but to dart back into the halls, but lucked seemed to be on her side.

"Meriones!" she gasped thankfully as the dark-plated turian scrambled around the corner, Creion close behind.

"Clara!" her roommate called. She made to speak, but Clara didn't let her, running towards them full speed with no plans of stopping.

"No time, need to get to the shuttle!" she yelled as she passed them. They didn't ask questions, turning on a dime and following her lead. Meriones guarded their backs while Creion kept a hand to Clara's back, ushering forward. Her calves burned, and she wasn't sure if it was from the exertion or if Miranda had shot her.

They passed endless crops of bodies, all decked in Cerberus uniforms. She heard return fire at her back and cursed – Miranda had followed after them.

"Warp!" Meriones barked, and Creion slammed his body against her and forced her out of the way of the biotic attack. It whirled past them as Clara's body slammed to the wall. She cried out in pain, her shoulder screaming in protest, but she didn't have time to let her thoughts linger. A second later Creion was pulling her back and forcing her into another run.

Peleus was going to have a field day when they got back. _If they got back_, a traitorous voice whispered.

The stretch back to the docking bay was easily the longest run of her life. Finally, the shuttle came into view, Nihlus and Boreas and Atrides were making their way back on the other side of the room. She allowed the barest sliver of relief; they were going to make it!

Another shot, this one not from her allies, and a burst of fire sparked in her back. Her knee gave out as pain shrouded her mind, and only Creion's watchful hands kept her from falling to the ground. He hefted her up into his arms, only succeeding in emphasizing the pain that littered her body – she vaguely realized she had torn open her shoulder wound.

Creion offered her body up to Peleus, who must have boarded with the others for the return drop as emergency medical. Creion and Meriones – both relatively unharmed – jumped in after.

"I'm doping her up now," Peleus barked, quick hands undoing the latches of her armor to inspect the wounds. His face looked less than pleased.

"I have the information," Clara said as the needle pricked her skin. The sedative took root in her blood almost immediately, her next words coming out in a slur. "The OSD-"

Nihlus' face swam into view – and did he look concerned? She reached up, pressing the drive into his hand. "Take it. Might help Tito."

She vaguely heard the sound of the shuttle taking off, vaguely felt Peleus' skillful hands as they staunched the bloodflow from the more grievous wounds. She could hear voices, but she couldn't understand. Finally, reality began to fade and her eyes drifted closed, Peleus' strange eyes gleaming overhead.

...

The beeping of a heart monitor kept her awake, echoing in her ears until she forced herself up. Sorthem stood over her, checking various bags of fluids filled with god knew what. He blinked down at her when he realized she was awake.

"Ah, good to see you're alive," he said. "I was afraid the blood loss was too severe."

"What can I say, I'm stubborn," she rasped.

Sorthem offered her a drink and she accepted it gladly. "Yes, very stubborn," he agreed. "Fortunately, this is also what kept you alive. That and my superior medical abilities."

"Any chance your superior medical abilities can tell me how bad it is?" she countered. Sorthem was unfazed, nodding as he answered.

"You were shot several times," he said, and she resisted the urge to go 'No shit, Sherlock'. "And you succeeded in tearing open your shoulder again. Your arm will likely never be the same. Your main injury was on your back – single bullet, missed severing your spine but punctured your lung and came through on other side. You suffered several other minor bullet wounds. Your armor will need to be totally scrapped and replaced. The damage is…extensive."

Clara exhaled slowly, unaware that she was even holding her breath. The sound of the door opening caught her attention, and then the familiar voice asked: "If you're done explaining how close to dead she was, I would like a word."

"Of course, Kryik," Sorthem agreed, stepping away. "I will be in my office."

The medic left, and Clara watched as Nihlus stepped forward, taking the salarians place by her bed. There was a pregnant pause. For a long moment, Clara thought he wasn't going to say anything at all.

"You did well," he said finally. "The outpost held valuable information – we know at least five other outposts. We have plans in motion to successfully neutralize their actions. We…I, owe you my thanks."

Clara swallowed down her shock, forcing herself to say dryly, "Well, glad to know my punctured lung wasn't for nothing."

Nihlus hesitated, his mandibles fluttering. "There was nothing regarding a poison made specifically for turians. But, we do have the names of two science outposts. They may have what you want."

Clara sighed, turning her head to hide the disappointment on her face. "I expected as much. Nothing is ever easy."

"I…also wanted to apologize."

Clara's head snapped over, her dark eyes staring at him incredulously. "What?"

Nihlus' mandibles fluttered, in either irritation or embarrassment she couldn't tell. She doubted 'embarrassed' was even in his vocabulary, so she settled on irritation. "I was wrong about you. I…misjudged you. And for that I am sorry. Your willingness to sacrifice yourself is admirable, if not foolish."

"Says the one who leaves formation on a regular basis," she retorted. She met his gaze head on, channeling as much intensity as she could into it. Considering she was still doped up, she doubted it was effective. "You're going to get yourself killed."

"I'm not the one laying in the med bay twice in one week," he countered.

"I'm laying here because it was the right thing to do," she argued. She sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "Look. I get it. You move faster on your own. And sometimes that's great. But sometimes the situation requires you have back up. Just, think about that in the future. Please. People here need you."

He looked at her for a while, and she prayed that he picked up on her not-even-slightly subtle hint. Because, even though Nihlus was a massive asshole to her, and even though he was the source behind a lot of emotional issues her first few months on the Citadel, he was needed. If not by Shepard, then by his crew. By Meriones and Creion and Lycia and-

The door slid open mid thought, the small engineer charging in with a pinched expression. She didn't spare Nihlus a look, and though her attention was focused on Clara it didn't feel like her anger was placed on her. Clara swallowed – ah. That meant she was irritated with Nihlus.

"You're an idiot," Lycia said sharply. "And I'm glad you're alive."

Clara smiled wryly, "Thanks. I'm glad I'm alive too."

Nihlus looked decidedly uncomfortable, shuffling his weight before finally saying, "I have matters to attend to. Rest. We wont go on a Cerberus mission for at least a month."

Lycia turned her ire on him, eyes alight with anger. "A month? Clara is going to need well more than a month to heal!"

"I asked Sorthem and Peleus for their medical opinion, and a month was the minimum time frame they gave her before being returned to active duty," Nihlus explained, keeping his voice level. "We need Clara. She's the only one who can get into the Cerberus bases without immediate detection."

Clara had never been more glad she'd decided to wear a helmet on the drop – otherwise, she was certain her face would be plastered all throughout the Cerberus base with a giant 'WANTED' stamped at the bottom. All Miranda knew was her face from the lips down and her voice. Surely that wasn't enough?

"Screw immediate detection, we should be blowing each base we find sky high without question!" Lycia argued.

"If we do that, we have no way to find other bases unless we have a stroke of dumb luck! This is the biggest break we've had in months, Lycia, we can't let it slip away now!"

Lycia bristled in agitation, turning to shun her commanding officer and fixing Clara with the softest look she could, considering her anger. "Rest as long as you need, Clara. We won't do anything stupid without you."

Clara made to respond, but Lycia turned and disappeared nearly as quickly as she had appeared. Nihlus floundered for a moment, not sure if he should chase down the engineer or stay and finish his conversation with Clara. She watched, amused, and with a heavy sigh Nihlus bade his farewell. She figured Nihlus was just having an off day – being nice to two people right after the other? Totally out of character.

...

A/N: Okay. This is the longest chapter yet. Next chapter we have ACT TWO. (Whoooo).

I'm ending it here because this is the kind of major first step into Clara actually, fully developing into the her she's destined to be. The next chapter is going to take place in about a 9 month time skip (give or take), and you'll notice that Clara has changed quite a bit. Maybe not overtly, but, there is a definite shift in her mental place. Everything will be explained, but, this story just covers such a huge span of information that it doesn't feel right just to placate you with drop missions that have the same basic plot, the same basic goal, the same basic...everything.

So, hope you enjoyed the first act! I'm excited to see how you react to Act Two (:

Lot's of Love;

B.E. Nomads

P.S. I know I said that Causation was gonna be on hiatus for NaNoWriMo, but I figured I'd give you a chapter with more closure. Next update should be around December 1.


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